Why yes, I DO live in another dimension

The BBQ Pit
1

So I’m having a beer here…

What kind of beer, jackelope?

Well, actually it’s an unpleasantly WARM beer…

How come it’s warm, jackelope?

Well, because the power’s out. The power’s been out for four days now.

Why is the power out, jackelope?

You see, Tuesday morning we in Memphis had 100-mph, straight-line winds come through town, and it tore this city up like Godzilla. (73-mph winds, you’ll recall, qualify for hurricane status.) It uprooted thousands of trees and snapped them like pencils. It blew windows out of buildings. (Not things blowing in the wind; the wind blew the windows out.) Amazingly, the storm itself only killed one person, though about five more have died in fire- or generator-related mishaps. In addition, the last few days have been mercifully cool, but the weather is about to get back up to its usual high-90s temperatures and 90% humidity, and then watch the death toll skyrocket, with half the city unairconditioned.

Gosh, that’s terrible! I didn’t even hear about it!

Of course you didn’t.

Why do you say that?

Because the goddam national news media apparently don’t realize that Memphis exists.

For Pete’s sake, on Tuesday we had 300,000 people without power here. About half of those, myself included, are STILL in the dark, four days later. (I’m typing this by candlelight on my laptop.) Many, if not most, streets are still darkened; no traffic lights, no streetlights. It’s like driving on the dark side of the moon.

The utility company says that it could be as long as TWO WEEKS before some people get their power back. The city is applying for Federal disaster-relief funds. NO ONE has refrigeration. Today I threw away everything in my entire fridge except four or five unopened beers and an unopened jar of caviar.

If this comes as a surprise, blame your local news outlets; apparently there aren’t enough deaths (yet) to make it newsworthy. Or blame yourselves for not opening vibrotronica’s provocatively-titled thread in MPSIMS:

Memphis: A Dress Rehearsal for the Apocalyspe.

Folks, we’re in bad, bad shape here. The MPSIMS thread’s been there for almost three days. Honestly, it would have helped my mood considerably as I stumble around my apartment in the dark if a few non-Memphians had just dropped a note in there sending good thoughts (thank you, Lsura).

Am I attention-whoring? Am I whining, “Oh, poor me! Somebody pay attention to MEEEEE!”?

Damn straight I am.

This city is fucked for the foreseeable future, and to have a couple of people drop in some good wishes would help our mood as we try to keep our tempers in the coming brutal heat. Additionally, it would help the thread stay on the front page so that as more Memphis-area Dopers get their power back, they’ll be more likely to check in and let us know they’re OK.

OK, back to my nasty, warm beer now.

2

Fuck, that’s horrible. :frowning: I don’t even know what to say, except that I’m thankful more people didn’t lose their lives in that mess. Good luck.

3

I had no idea - we’ve heard nothing about this over here. I’m so sorry - I hope the situation improves soon.

4

Thanks so much, pepperlandgirl. Though I should have made clearer in the OP that frequent additions to the linked thread, not this one, are the goal, since that’s the one that Memphis Dopers are likely to see as they get their power back.

Then again, since this one is working, it’d be nice to have it stay prominent too…

Maybe the Mods should make the MPSIMS thread a sticky. Yeah, that’d do it.

(Grrr, can’t wait til I’m a Mod.)

5

And thanks ToffeeApple; don’t want to seem like I was ignoring anyone.

6

You have my sympathy for being out of power. My electric goes off at least twice a week, for a few minutes to hours on occasion. With no explanation.

What I’d like to know:

If you have no power, how are you posting?

7

Steelerphan: Laptop battery, which I charged up at work (the newspaper is apparently considered a vital function and gets its power back ASAP). I’m shutting down now, to save battery power for my three-day weekend, which I should be a lot happier about.

8

I’m sorry jackelope! How awful! I didn’t hear a darn thing about this…However, I do know every nauseating move than Ben and J Lo make…The media really is ridiculous! Anyway, hope it gets better for you soon.

9

Memphis. Isn’t that near Nashville, but in another state? […ouch!..]

10

This didn’t make the international news either. It sounds absolutely awful. My sympathies, and hope you guys manage to fix things up soon. (Wonder why it hasn’t been declared a disaster area?)

11

Declarations of disastor areas are inextricably tied to political expedience, i.e., a governor’s appeal to a president. Unfortunately, Atlanta (read: CNN) doesn’t make room for Memphis or Charlotte or any of the other great southern cities on the political plate.

12

I find it completely bizarre this isn’t all over the news. It looks like the major wire services completely dropped the ball (possibly due to the power outages??) and so nobody else picked it up either.

I emailed CBC to tell them about it. Perhaps they’ll pick it up.

Anyway, bon courage. We had a big ice storm here in 1998 that cut out power for more than a week to most of Montreal and the rest of southwestern Quebec and southeastern Ontario. My family and I camped out in our living room with blankets covering the door, cooking stew in the fireplace. It’s tough being completely unable to see in the bathroom or flush the toilet cos there’s no water. Sounds like it’s having the same kinds of effects. But we survived and rebuilt stuff and now we’re right as rain.

13

Good Lord! 300,000 people without power and not a peep from the media? I guess the national media really does think you ign’ant southerners don’t count for anything. My sympathies, jackelope, that’s really irritating.

14

Thanks for the good wishes, everyone; I have no idea why this is flying below the national news radar, though I suspect that it’s because of the low body count. The governor was here yesterday looking around; let’s hope that’s the first step toward disaster-area status.

And once again, today seems to be unseasonably cool; that’s the bright spot in all this. For weeks before the storm, we’d been over 90 pretty much every day, but since then it’s stayed in the low 80s. Hope that continues.

15

Crap! I live in Murfreesboro and I haven’t heard about this!

WTF is wrong with the US media these days?

16

My friend Sophie lives in that area and has been writing about life in a disaster area in her LiveJournal since this happened. It’s very weird, because it had in fact occurred to me that if it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have even known it had happened. It’s very odd to be learning about such a major disaster from one single person, with no media coverage at all.

17

My mother heard a blurb about it in Denver the day it happened, but I haven’t noticed it on the news here in DC. How bizarre.

18

I can’t believe that this is not being covered nationally. I listen to NPR almost all day long, and didn’t even hear a thing about it. This thread is literally the first news I’ve gotten about your situation in Memphis.

I would say that this is BIG NEWS.

I hope that thing are back to a semblance of normal ASAP. I’ll be thinking of you folks down there. :frowning:

19

Holy moley. This is the first I’ve heard about this. Unbelievable. I hope you guys are doing OK–best wishes from us.

20

Holy cow. I don’t watch television much, so I hoped it was just me…but this really hasn’t been on the news, has it? How horrid.

I’m in Indiana, jackelope, but come on up if you want to sleep on a spare couch; at least you can drink cold beer.

What can we Dopers do to help?

Best,
karol