Memphis: A Dress Rehearsal for the Apocalyspe.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
41

The storm was one week ago today. Current households without power: 80,000. Word from MLGW is that just about all of the “easy” (sic) cases are done, and now they’re working the very severe areas. Like where Arhat and I live. (Arhat, I’m a couple blocks west of you on Rozelle.) Linden, Arhat’s street, and Belvedere, one street over from me, is among the worst damage in the city according to the MLGW crew leader who was working our block yesterday. At least two houses on that street, across the street from my old apartment (behind the McDonald’s on Union, for those who know the area) have been condemned. As of two days ago, there were still Still no power at the vibro-bunker, but they’re working the problem at least. The MLGW guy I talked to yesterday outlined the damage to my circuit in Central Gardens yesterday (mind-bogglingly bad) and estimated three to seven days repair time. So I could still be out of power next Tuesday.

The good news is that my friend’s house for whom I’m house sitting had electricity restored yesterday, so I and some of my other in-the-dark Midtowner friends got our first full night’s sleep last night. We took our cat Sly, who was suffering greatly in the heat, over there with us. There was a short get-acquainted period between Sly and their cat Bitey in which Sly beat the living shit out of her. Sly was banished to the basement after that.

This morning saw torrential rains in the area, which brought some VERY welcome relief, temperature wise, but was very bad for all the people with roof damage who now have even more water damage in their homes. The new round of thunderstorms (not even in the ballpark of last week, thankfully) did delay utility and cleanup work, as well.

The controversy over the Entergy offer of help continues, fueled by local talk radio. More details from MLGW in this morning’s Commercial Appeal: The offer wasn’t formally made until after the first reports of a refusal were made; the number of available crewmen were misreported; there was no mutual help contract with Entergy before the storm, while there were mutual help contracts with various TVA-affiliated utilities, including NES (Nashville) and Chattanooga (the folks who were working on my block yesterday were from Chattanooga, supervised by MLGW); and the help wouldn’t have arrived until Saturday at the earliest. But that hasn’t stopped the ignorant cranks on the radio from excoriating MLGW. I will have choice comments on those people in jackalope’s associated Pit thread. I would like to get perspectives from anyone who has been through a hurricane, probably the closest analog in terms of utility damage, as to how long it took to get power fully restored. Keep in mind that this storm caught us totally flat footed. There wasn’t even a severe thunderstorm warning until twenty minutes before it crossed the river.

Two more have died since last post: the wife of the man overcome by CO poisoning, and a man who has been in a coma since being struck by falling debris during the storm. Death toll is now seven.

For those who want to help, the American Red Cross reported this morning that they had no shortage of voluteers, but they desperately needed monetary donations.

42

Done. Thanks for that info and your update.

43

Update on my end:

Still no power, etc. Chickasaw Gardens is still a mess: that’s probably the ‘hold-up’ for power restoration in our area. Haven’t seen any crews near us.

vibrotronica: I’ve been through a hurricane before (Iniki): but since I was on O’ahu, damage was minimal, with no power loss. This is the longest time I, or my parents, have been out of power.

44

Former Memphian here, live in Springfield, Mo. now. My daughter, son-in-law & grandbaby still live in Mphs. I am still amazed that the national news media is ignoring this. The paper in Springfield had a story about the Memphis in May barbeque, but not this. My daughter lives in Midtown (directly behind the hole where the Peabody library used to be!) Luckily, she was set to housesit in Cordova this week anyway…they have power there. She went to her apartment to get her cats & said the fleas have gotten horrible. She’ll have to bomb the place before they can go back in.
She works at a hospital there so we can communicate thru e-mail.
We’re gonna be in Mphs. 8-15 & she’s warned me that I won’t recognize some places…& I lived there most of my life.
Good luck to everyone there.

45

Checking in. Still no power, though the crews seem to be getting closer; in fact, most of the houses across the street have power, so I can sit on my porch watching the TV flickering the walls in the windows across the street. I feel like Jay Gatsby staring at that stupid green light on the pier.

Thank heaven for today’s break in the heat; I’m sure the rain is slowing the crews down, but man, this cool weather is a major relief.

I got the picures developed that I took the day of the storm. Here are a few of them, poorly scanned because I don’t know what I’m doing with a scanner:

The sign is hard to read, but this is the Raymond Skinner Handicapped Recreation Center on Central. There’s a guy on the roof trying to clear it.

Belvedere, looking south from Poplar

Another shot of Belvedere

One more shot of Belvedere (note sheared-off telephone pole)

Auburndale near Poplar. These guys have an ironclad excuse to be late for work. (Note that the cars are fine, but trapped.)

Another shot of Auburndale

Williamson Park

The road through Overton Park

Black and white film isn’t really the ideal medium for these, but it’s what I had in the camera at the time.

46

Well, mostly good news on my end. MLG&W is finally working on my street, and as of about 1:00 this afternoon they had installed one pole. Also, Whisper (my black lab) is doing much better now that the rain has made the temperature much more tolerable. And, I finished The Godfather last night and started on The Alienist.

I do hope that it doesn’t really take another week as was suggested to vibrotronica (Hi vibrotronica)

In other good news, I notice that this post brings my post count up to an astonishing >1 per year.

Hang in there everyone.

Arhat

47

Another update from my end…
Still no power, etc. Street behind me seems to have power: either that or everyone has generators. :wink:

Still haven’t spotted crews nearby, looks like they’re saving Chickasaw Gardens for last, so by proxy I won’t see them either for awhile.

Once we get our roll of film developed, I’ll see about putting some of the pics up for viewing: that’ll take awhile though, since I’m going on vacation soon.

48

Day eight. No power for vibrotronica. I officially lost my bet with my SO today as to when we would have power restored. The storms yesterday set back the recovery effort. An couple thousand additional customers had their power knocked out again. As of 10:30, MLGW reports 72,000 households without power. It’s going to be slow going from here on out because of the severity of the remaining damage. (I believe a new term has been coined for the process of determining the order of repair: “tree-age”) MLGW is also asking people to keep their porch lights on so they can easily tell who’s up and who’s down.

W. finally got around to declaring us a disaster area this morning. The Feds will help pick up the impressive tab for repair and cleanup, and homeowners will be elegible for grants and low-interest loans to help with repairs. More details here:
http://www.gomemphis.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_2145147,00.html

The Red Cross came by our house yesterday while we were out. They are still solicting donations to help cover the cost of food and shelter for storm victims. MLGW has also instituted a Utility Repair Assistance Program. Details here:
http://www.mlgw.com/pr_stormassistance.htm

There’s only one topic of conversation in Memphis right now. I just got back from an interview at a local private school for an architecture column I’m writing. About half the conversation time was talking about the storm, what kind of damage you had, where you were, what you’ve seen and heard, etc. etc.

Traffic signals are slowly being replaced as well. 75% of the signals in the city werre down after the storm. The city has already bought all of the existing inventory of signals, and now we’re buying them as soon as they come off the assembly lines. So the good news is, state of the art traffic signals in Memphis this year! The number of major intersections without signals are down to a level that most of them now have traffic cops directing traffic, which speeds travel in the city considerably. Each officer has his or her own method of signalling, which has led to some great moments at interesctions. “Is she telling me to raise the roof? What does that mean?”

Thanks for the pics, jackelope. I’ve got some doozeys on my SO’s digital camera, too. I’ll find a place to post them as soon as possible–but it could be a little while.

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I disagree. There’s something suitably timeless about black-and-white that makes the damage even more epic in scale, somehow.

By the way, up here in Seattle, I would have had no idea that this was going on if I hadn’t been reading the SDMB. Please, do continue to keep us updated.

50

Thanks for checking in (and for reinforcing my aesthetic sensibility), Cervaise.

I find that after nine days of darkness I don’t even mind anymore; I’ve already adjusted to the outage and consider it the normal state of affairs. I don’t think, “Dang! The power’s out!” I just go about my life, and I’m sure that when the power comes back on I’ll be wallowing in delight for a day or two. Strange to realize how malleable one’s idea of “normal” is.

51

Well well. Aren’t we just having the most fun ever? I’m glad that this thread was started!

My children go to Union Avenue Baptist Daycare. You know, the one that lost its roof and its windows? Yeah, that one.

I work at an old cemetery in town. We’ve had to hire six new groundcrew to cover cutting up the trees.

Have any of the other Memphians been by the Scientology Church on Central Avenue? One huge tree is still laying on top of a red car (make and model cannot be ascertained at time of publishing).

52

Yep, I remember back in ‘02 we had something called “'lectricity” that you could use to light up your house without candles. No, seriously! Machines could do your washin’ for you, and you could hear voices from clean 'cross the county on a little box–sometimes with pictures that moved! I know you young whippersnappers, what with your fancy oil lamps and interweb de-vices think you’re hot stuff, but let me tell you…

Day Ten. No power for vibrotronica. I had a crew from Louisiana working my street yesterday. I figured that was a good sign, since they probably have hurricane experience. Roughly 69,000 meters without power now. There’s a huge–6 ft tall–tansformer on the sidewalk in front of my house this morning. Were they working on it, or did they just kick it to the curb? Who knows?

302 of the 420 intersections with traffic lights destroyed have been restored. Yay progress!

The huge cranes being used to build the Fed Ex forum (the big boondoggle which will be the home to the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies until they decide to move to a more profitable market) are being slowly disassembled. My man on Beale Street (“You want to know anything that’s happening in this town,” he says, “You ask me.”) reports that one of them was leaning over 20 feet at the top. All three local TV stations have running cameras trained on them 24-hours a day in case they collapsed. (“Pulitzer Prize material!” my man says.) Part of Beale Street was reopened today. It is not known when work will recommence on the arena.

Preliminary numbers from yesterday say that about 5,000 homes suffered moderate to severe damage in the storm. On the first day of eligibility, 1,700 homeowners applied to FEMA for federal aid.

The Memphis Flyer, the local alternative weekly, published yesterday with a photo of the house on Linden next door to my old apartment. There’s a crushed car on the street and a sign, spray painted on a bedsheet, that says “Welcome to Disaster Street.” Last week, the Flyer missed its first issue in it’s 14-year history. The have dubbed Memphis “The City the Media Forgot.”

Q: What’s the difference between Memphis and Baghdad?
A: The government’s trying to rebuild Baghdad.

53

Well, we’re still without power, but we’ve now got a gigantic pole out in front of our house to replace the one that’s been leaning in front of our neighbor’s since the storm. I think the only thing that’s holding the old one up is the wires it’s stretched against. They snap, and it’ll probably come down. As for this new pole, it wasn’t here last night when drove by the house at six, and it was there at eight.(the family having decamped to Arkansas for the duration where 'lectricity and air conditioning are available in abundance along with mosquitoes and ticks.) I’m beginning to think MLGW is working in stealth mode, but how do you get a huge pole down the street that late at night?
-Lil

54

Still no power, etc. here also. However, they seem to be gearing up to rewire the poles and lines that used to go over Central where Fenwick crosses it.

And yup, I go by that Church on Central every day: problem is, I’m too busy trying to avoid getting squashed at the intersection to look at the scenery.

Thankfully, a neighbor behind us (who has power back) has let us get a long outdoor extension cord and plug it into one of their outlets, so we can run our mini-fridge and a fan off of it. :cool:

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It’s very appropriate that you used the “cool” smiley there, Nightsong!

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It’s very appropriate that you used the “cool” smiley there, Nightsong!

57

Checking in. Day Ten in the dark for me as well. No news, no trucks on my street, no nothing. I wonder if I need to call MLGW and tell them we’re in the dark? The opposite side of my street has been up for four or five days now, but my side has nothing. We’re on different lines; my power lines go down the backyards on my side of the street, and my neighbor’s house has an enormous tree lying over them. I haven’t seen any crews out there at all. Sigh.

I’m writing my next utility check to “MGW.”

58

They’re supposedly driving down streets, checking to see if porch lights are on so they can ‘pin down’ areas still without power. But how many people have heard the news they’re supposed to leave their porch lights on?

“I know, I’ll check their website!”

“Hey wait, I have NO POWER!” :rolleyes:

I just hope that when they restore the power, that I’ll get my cable service back at the same time. Kinda doubtful, though.

59

MLGW reports 59,000 still without power. That represents about 80% restored since the storm, but presumably those of us who are still in the dark are so because it’s going to be extra-labor-intensive to get us wired up again. I sure hope they’re working out a good contingency plan for the next time this happens.

Good luck on the cable, Nightsong. The CA reports:

From MLGW’s site:

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I know my cable’s not gonna come back on when(if?) the power comes back on. The cable line’s ripped off the house. I know exactly where it is because it’s on the wrong side of the house apparently. Time Warner came out a few times and explained that the cable lines needed to be on the same side of the house as the power or the TV’s could all get hit by electricity during a storm.

So they were supposed to come back and dig a hole in the street, rewire and all of that. Of course we never saw them again. I imagine it’ll be a while now.

-Lil