My friend Chez blogged about it and it reminded me of when I was in South Florida -- Hurricane Andrew destroyed a large portion of South Dade County and for a couple of days, it seemed like nobody was paying attention. I was in Memphis when a freak summer storm left nearly a half million homes without power. So here's a little bit from the Wayback Machine:
July 30, 2003. More than a week has passed since The Storm hit Memphis.Nashville's disaster is much worse than what Memphians experienced nearly seven years ago. I hope somebody starts paying attention to them soon.
My city is in shambles. As of this moment, more than 60,000 homes are still without power. In my own newsroom, Ursula Madden, Tracy Langlois and Janice Broach are all working in the newsroom by day and dealing with life in the Delta heat sans AC by night.
The storm and its wake killed seven people. The city and surrounding areas suffered damages in excess of $40 million. Assuming that each home has two occupants, it may be Friday before 120,000 have electricity. Yesterday, President Bush (may I say FINALLY) declared Shelby and Fayette a disaster area.
The weirdest thing about this whole thing (for me) has been the lack of national attention. No network crews, very little mention except for a couple of voice-overs on some of the networks. Tammy Robken got the attention of a CNBC producer yesterday and Tuesday night, Shelby County mayor A C Wharton did a "Kate Hale" on CNBC (anyone who was in South Florida during Andrew will know what that is, more than ten years later) and later tonight, NBC correspondent Kerry Sanders, will arrive in Memphis to put a story together for Thursday night's Nightly News.
Finally, some attention! Send money! Send baby food! Send trees!
