Rodent Regatta

Sometimes photographs simply cannot provide a complete view of devastation.

That’s the case with the photos of Memphis after the storm hit us the morning of July 22, 2003.

Around the corner from me, one of the city’s oldest oak trees toppled in the front yard of a neighbor’s home.

The storm hit around 7:15 in downtown Memphis after crossing the Mississippi River. By 7:35a.m. power was off for 338,000 customers of the local utility company.

The thumbnail to the right points to a fallen tree. It had a flower bed around it.

That flower bed wound up perpendicular to the ground.

Electricity to my home was restored on August 4, 2003 around 6:00p.m.

That’s thirteen days without power.

However, as the photo linked from the thumbnail on the right will show, being without power was the least of the worries for so many.

The house in the photo was struck and almost sliced in half by two trees. The family who lives there is still in a hotel and construction has not yet begun to repair the house. The fellow who owns this house was standing in the den eating a bowl of cereal and looking out his back door. He looked up to see the trees falling. Fortunately, no one was injured.

At my church, we lost 14 trees. This is about the average size of the ones that were lost.

Debris from the clean up is still burned each evening. When the wind and atmospheric conditions are just right we can smell the smoke.

There are still many limbs hanging in the trees. They are likely to fall this winter if we have any snow or ice at all. A light breeze recently brought many of those types of limbs down.