Rodent Regatta

The straight-line windstorm that hit Memphis, TN on July 22, 2003 was referred to today as ”Hurricane Elvis.” Take a look at this slideshow for a few of the photographs that illustrate why 338,000 utility customers were without power immediately after the storm. It took over two weeks for everyone to get power restored.

My home was without power for over thirteen days. Later today, I’ll post some neighborhood photos that show the power of the storm.

Thanks to all of you who have emailed concerning the outage. Yesterday’s Internet access was intermittent at best. This morning, I arrived at my desk at 6:00 a.m., but all lights on the cable modem were flashing. I finally got service just before 8:00 a.m.

Electrical service has been on since being restored. Phone services have also been working since the electricity was restored.

For a number of days after the storm, people needed help clearing their driveways just enough to get the cars in and out. Others began the clean up effort right away. A crane was brought in to lift a tree from the home next door to mine. I began helping neighbors and, after a couple of days of that, I began work on my back yard.

Hilarious side note: I found a line that was connecting two rickety old utility poles entangled in some downed limbs in the backyard. Realizing it was going to be needed to stabilize the utility poles, I began untangling it and moving it to the side where work might begin.

When electrical crews arrived this week to get my block restored, I pointed out the ”tension cable” so they could get to work there first. ”Sir, that’s not a tension cable, that’s the primary conductor for this neighborhood and carries 23,000 volts!”

Silly me! Now I remember why I’m glad power was out when I was cleaning up back there.

I was able to get some work done last night. Arriving at my desk at 5:30 a.m. this morning, I discovered that the local cable company was still having trouble being a reliable ISP.

The call to tech support resulted in all of the ”you’re an ignorant user” kinds of questions followed by all of the ”you’re an ignorant user” kinds of tests. Completing the last test, the phone babe concluded that there must be something wrong.

She told me the ”Memphis office” had some outages earlier this month. I about reached through the phone. I was without power, phones or Internet service for 13 days. She then said the Memphis office wouldn’t open until 8:00 a.m., but she’d enter a ”trouble ticket.”

Moments ago, I got Internet access again. No clue as to how dependable it will be.

There are tales to be told about the storm that hit Memphis. With power restored last evening, we didn’t get a reliable cable modem connection until late today. Then, there were the 4000+ emails that needed to be purged of 3400 sickening slices of spam.

Trust me, regular entries will resume soon. I read a lot by flashlight during the outage. We have a great deal to learn in this country about disaster preparedness and executing a disaster plan. More importantly, we sit on a rather fragile infrastructure that isn’t getting enough maintenance, and it isn’t getting replaced by newer technology at any rate that makes sense. Think rotten telephone poles where underground conduits ought to be.

More later – please stay tuned. Please?

On July 22, 2003 at 7:35 in the morning, Memphis, TN experienced a freak storm consisting of 100MPH ”straightline winds.” This was a bit like an inland hurricane.

The local utility company known as Memphis Light, Gas & Water saw 306,000 of its customers lose power. That’s customers – not people. Multiply by about three to determine the number of people that were impacted. Literally, I have lived in the dark with no air conditioning since the morning of July 22, 2003.

At 5:20p.m. this afternoon, power was restored. Until then, I had no way to use computers, phones, cellular service, etc. The national media has not covered this story. Memphis, TN looks like a war zone. One hundred year old trees blew over at the roots or split open. They now litter the city.

You simply cannot imagine how devastating it can be to a metropolitan area of over one million people to have 70% of the area without electricity.

If you’ve read this far and can influence others to resume reading this weblog, I’d appreciate it. We’ll be attempting to return to normal posting over the next couple of days.

If you’ve been expecting an email or phone call from me, know that I’m trying to catch up, but it may be several days before you hear from me.