Uggg. Please let it not be several weeks for me to get power! I may set up a cot in my office if that happens.
Traffic lights in the area, at least, are starting to regain power: admittedly some of them are a bit topsy-turvy from the winds…
:
: a friend of mine who shall remain nameless and sexless is already sleeping in, um, his or her office at the university, ** nightsong **
I didn’t know a thing about your troubles in Memphis until I saw the pit thread. Unbelievable.
Here’s a link about derechos:
http://earthbulletin.amnh.org/D/2/index.html
:eek:
Oh, and here’s jackelope’s pit thread:
Why yes, I DO live in another dimension
http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_2139532,00.html
Here’s where MLGW is supposed to be working today. My geography appears to be failing me right now, but I don’t think it includes me.
-Lil
I’ve seen their map of where they’re working: problem is, it is so low-res I can’t figure out W(here)TF they’re working. I think they may be in my area, or I may in that little red squiggle where they aren’t. GAH!
http://mlgw.com/restoration_map.htm For those interested.
Still no power, phone, or cable. But I’ve seen more and more work crews descending upon the area: none carrying new wires to string up, however.
Great. Checked the map and I’m not even remotely close to any of it. And the laptop’s battery is dying; maybe I can charge it up, uh, somewhere.
Keep it together, folks; it could be worse. I’m sure it could be worse. Somehow.
Head to the University jackelope: the power is up and running, and there’s power outlets in the main library that you can use.
And, more fun…
cue to last night
I’m slowly drifting out of a nice deep sleep… wondering why I’m so HOT. Not just hot, but DAMN HOT. Dimly, I hear a commotion in the background.
Urrrh… whaz the shouting… why am I so hot… I wanna sleep…
More shouting, and the sounds of sirens. Lots of them.
Those sirens sound like they’re stopping nearby…
The sounds of heavy duty brakes bringing a big object to rest, then the ‘hiss’ afterwards.
Urg. Sounds like a big truck. Wai… whaz Dad doing up?
So I sleepily sit up, wrap my sarong about me, grab flashlight, and out of my room I go.
Turns out the house on the street behind us, and about two over, caught on fire. When Dad woke up and looked out, flames were shooting out of the roof “like a giant bonfire.”
cue to this morning
We get up, get breakfast, and decide to see what the damage from the fire was. The house involved was on the small side, and there was a hole in the roof where the flames went through, and one where the firefighters cut one. Smoke damage was evident around nearly all openings in the house: the door, windows, and roof vents. Even some smoke damage on some of the siding.
I have no clue what happened, nor if anyone was hurt. Hopefully no one was injured, and those living there have a place to go.
Scary stuff, Nightsong; you could actually feel heat from the fire in your home? Hope no one was hurt.
I’ve charged up the laptop (and charged the cell phone, did laundry, and sat in some A/C for a while) at a friend’s place not far from here where, somehow, they never lost power at all. I’ll be back on-line sparingly. In the meantime, this is turning out to be awful somewhat like poverty is awful: not even interestingly “what’s going to happen next” awful, but just boringly awful.
Looks like the crews are plugging away. Haven’t seen any in my neighborhood yet, but I remain hopeful, though progressively less so as each day goes by.
Lord, it’s hot in here.
Six days without power here, and I’ve not been a happy girl.
Not happy at all.
Sweaty and hot and cranky and tired of canned spam spread washed down with hot diet cokes, but not the least bit happy.
Luckily my brother’s power is up now so I may be sleeping on a floor, but it’s a cool comfy floor.
Like I’ll be sleeping with his DSL. 
And my apologies if this posts twice.
Hey, Rushgeekgirl, thanks for checking in. I’m glad you’re OK, and I can certainly understand the sweaty and hot and cranky bit.
11:15 p.m., and it’s still 88 F in my apartment.
Wow, you guys are really having a time of it. I hope at least some Entergy crews are able to work with your power folks to help out; we here in Entergy country got help from all over the country after Hurricane Lili last year. It’s always good to help out your neighbors.
Stay cool and hang in there! And you folks do realize that drip coffeemakers make coffee just fine by simply pouring boiling water into them that you heat on the barbecue grill, don’t you?
Still no power, no cable, no phone. 
However, Dad’s workplace is now back up and running, so that’s good news.
(The funny part: we stopped by his office last week, because he needed to pick up a CD and some notes. The emergency power was on, meaning only ‘essentials’ were powered. Stair/exit lights, door locks, etc. And the heated bathroom door handles. :rolleyes: )
And Mama Tiger: MLGW has turned down the offers from Entergry… saying that for safety reasons, they need to have at least one MLGW person on every crew and they are stretched to their limits. But at least the extra crews could cleanup and get the telephone poles redone for the ‘regular’ crews to finish up with.
It was 82 in my house this morning. If it wasn’t for the fact that traveling is extremely stressful on my cat, I would have brought her into work with me today.
And I’ve got plenty of coffee makers that’ll work on a camp stove: I collect vintage percolators, etc. (If it ain’t eletric, I don’t already have one like it and/or is unusual, I pick it up. So, I have about 20 or so of 'em.)
On the plus side, making sun tea will be easy with the way the weather is. On the down side, without ice, there’s no way to cool it down.
I’m back in the office after the weekend, and I’ve never been so happy to be at work in my life. Holy farking snit it’s hot. The heat index today is predicted to be 105. No power in the vibro-bunker, but my thermostat is battery powered, so the SO and I do have an objective measure of misery. At 2 am it was 91 degrees in the house. What sleep we did get was in fever-dream fits and starts. I never realized that nights were so long! Everything seems surreal and unearthly–which is probably a combination of sleep deprivation, allergy medicine (to control my asthma, as I’m “sleeping” in close quarters with the cat), and the surreal nature of our surroundings. Over the weekend, we took to making excuses to drive around in the car, which has boffo AC. I saw Chickasaw Gardens for the first time–the destruction is incredible. Those folks aren’t gong to have power any time soon. They’re basically going to have to clear out the old lines and rewire the whole neighborhood–after clearing out the debris from 100+ year old trees which are laying everywhere. The roads have been reduced to winding paths between downed branches and sawed logs. Firewood is going to be cheap this year.
I drove some friends to the airport on Saturday. They conveniently had a vacation scheduled this week, so they’re in Florida and we’re looking after the house. The upshoot is that we have doubled our chances of getting AC, but the downside is that we’d have to leave our house locked up and hope that it doesn’t get burgled. Break-ins are way up all over town because of the lack of lights and alarms, but civil order has been maintained so far. Tempers–mine included–are extremely short among the have-nots, however.
The CA reports that MLGW has gotten down to less than 100,000 households without power. The morning news conference is scheduled for 10:30. More then.
refreshes MLGW’s website
I managed to hit it just after they updated the info on the front page, but not before they put up the new ‘breaking news’ page.
Let’s see… down to 85,000 without power. And they say for a pole with ‘devices’ it’ll take 6 hours to replace. So even if they started working just after I left for work this morning, I still won’t have power back by this evening. (Two dead poles, with ‘devices’ down. I don’t want to think about how many in Chickasaw Gardens they have to do.)
Now I’m just hoping I have power before I leave on vacation (to that wedding) this next Sunday. I may be bringing my dirty laundry with me! (Hi! I’m so glad to see you, after not seeing each other for almost 8 years! Where’s your laundry machine?)
Okay, so I was sick this morning so I missed class but as a bonus, I get to spend an extra day in the air conditioned house in Arkansas before I head home. I may have to move in with my aunt, she got power because she lives near a retirement home.
-Lil
Another storm-related death: a 73-year-old man died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by a generator. His wife was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. This brings the total to five by my count.
Checking in from Midtown (by that big hole that used to be the Peabody Library). No lights, no air, no chance of being restored anytime soon. We have 6 poles down just on our little street (Linden). Everywhere you look there are smashed cars, smashed houses, power lines in the street, transformers on the sidewalk. My friend’s actually jealous of me because I can go to work where I have A/C and internet access.
At least the Studio on the Square opened up so I could go see a few movies this weekend. I don’t drive, so I have to rely on things that are close enough to walk to.
I’m getting a bit concerned about my dog, a 13-year old black lab. I have windows open, of course, but it still gets pretty hot in my apartment. She’s been panting pretty heavily since yesterday when it really started to get hot. Someone suggested getting a kiddie pool, if I can find one.
The one good thing that’s come out of this (for me at least) is that I’ve met the neighbors. Before all this happened I couldn’t have told you the names of even one other person in my apartment building. Now I know 6 or 7 of them, since we all have nothing better to do than to sit out on our porches and talk, rather than holing up in our little media-enriched hovels.
Hope everyone gets power soon.
Scott (Arhat)
One thing you can do for the dog is to put ice (if you can get it) into a milk jug or other container for her to lay up against if she gets too hot. I have been worrying about the animals, as well as the people. I wish I knew what to do to help. We still have no news of what you are going through here in Nashville.
Updates, you guys?