Ice Storm

The cold houses and shattered trees are testing the resilience of Nashville.

We’ve had quite the go of it these past few days. The original forecast was for several inches of snow over the weekend followed by “wintry mix,” whatever type of fiendish concoction that is, with the chance of “some ice” on the tail end. What we got was about two inches of snow and somewhere between a half and three-quarters of an inch of ice…an utter hellscape. The weather moved in Friday night and continued all day Saturday. The snow came first, then the ice began in earnest on Saturday afternoon. The streets become impassable except to fools who believe that “four wheel drive” means you can drive on ice…you can’t, you are in a sled with a heater. Sunday morning I woke to the repeated booms of tree limbs crashing down. At 7am, a large boom to our northwest signaled the death of a transformer. I saw a bright flash and then the power went out. About 30-seconds later our generator kicked in and it has been running non-stop till about an hour ago.

I turned to my wife and said the famous line from Admiral Stockdale when he had been shot down over North Vietnam, “we have entered the world of Epictetus.” Stockdale was a brilliant philosopher and educator. I had the privilege of going through the Stockdale Course when I was a Naval officer many years ago. He presented the Stockdale Paradox: confront the brutal facts of your current reality, yet never lose faith that you will prevail in the end. As my notes from that class read: “know that things can get a helluva lot worse, but pray and believe that they will get better.” Things got worse.

First, the kitchen sink chose this moment to begin backing up. I did not have “Liquid Plumr” on my winter supply checklist, but will from now on. I tried numerous home remedies but was finally able to clear the clog with a battery powered snake (highly recommended home tool!) As the dirty water drained out, I cleaned out the dishwasher…a fair amount of that yuck had backed into it when I had been trying to plunge the plug out. After wiping it down, I fired it up. My wife was taking short-term possession of our neighbor’s child’s fish a beta named Swimmy, who could not take the cold of no power. We were commiserating in the kitchen when a billow of suds came pouring out of the dishwasher onto the floor. Ugh! One of the home remedies I had tried was dish soap and boiling water. That didn’t work…but it coated the dishwasher with additional soap and those suds had nowhere to go. Any rate, we finally got everything cleaned up and we are fully functioning again on the plumbing side.

But the damage to our trees and all the trees in “Forest Hills” is biblical in scale. It looks like we got shelled. We were here in the last big ice storm in 1994, but this was much worse. In 1994, after the storm passed, the temperatures rose into the 40’s for several days, making everything more passable even though it did take them longer to get us our power back. Our house came with a Carolina stove set into the downstairs fireplace so after the first night we set up camp downstairs and gritted it out. We were able to get out of the house by mid-day following the storm and we treated the kids to a big breakfast at Shoney’s before gathering some last supplies and retreating to our warm cave. For years, the kids talked about how much fun it was…and it was…for about three days. Cabin fever starts to set in on Day 4 and pure anxiety by Day 5, you must remember the Stockdale Paradox!

We are the lucky ones. As I write, three days after the storm has passed, there are over 100,000 homes still without power. There are over 300 poles that are broken and have to be replaced. The task is gargantuan.

The thing about events like this, is that people forget their pettiness and sometimes even their own problems…people become a community. We talk to each other in the checkout line at the Home Depot or grocery store. We share our predicaments and wish each other well. I remembered that from the ‘94 storm too and 9/11. Maybe we need to experience the deprivation of not having our internet for several days or having to do heavy manual labor to restore a yard to appreciate how good we have it and what our common humanity actually is.

For now, we are back in the 21st Century, for better or worse. During the “down time,” I thumbed through some older works and found this poem below. I pray you are reading it from a safe, warm place and that it gives you some sense of what it is like to go through one of these. This polar vortex anomaly is not going away for several days. I will be praying for all of you.

Ice Storm in Nashville, 1994

February 1994

I.

It snuck up on us.
The weather forecasters called for rain:
"Take your umbrella to work!"
By mid-day they upped the forecast
To "storm watch."
As sleet and freezing rain began
Painting the patio and streets it was:
"Storm Warning."

We continued our normal lives
Despite the inconvenience of a longer
And slipperier commute on shiny, wet
Ice.
The television in the kitchen
Played the news and the
Wake Forest game.
The outside world was disturbing.

In the second half the lights
Flickered, went dim, flickered again.
Then went out.

II.

The night gnawed on.
Stepping outside in the total darkness

Total except for the ghostly gas
Lamps haloed in the freezing mist.

The popping sound, like distant artillery,
Sang through the valley.
Trees, whose limbs were coated with
Quarter inch ice bent and
Broke.

Like Napoleon's shattered army trying to drag
Itself off the fearful frozen Russian steppe, but
Stopping to rest, they
Hunch-armed stooped low to the ground and numbly
Stood their posts.

Flashes in the darkness foretold, you thought,
Of coming thunderstorms: the eerie juxtaposition
Of approaching summer prairie storms with
Tundric ice.
Morning would prove the flashes
Were transformers, loaded and
Bursting with zingery booms that left
Whole neighborhoods dark but electrically
Humming.

It was as if God had decided to
Set the record straight.
Had we done something to deserve this,
Or was it, as the scientists said,
The jet stream twisting further
South?
On the weather map it looked like
A tortured backwards "S" stretched across the
Gut of the nation.

III.

Under blankets and
Several
Layers of
Sweatshirts, sweat pants, sweat socks,
You drift off, with only
Your face, like camping outdoors,
Feeling the gathering chill.
Jumping at sounds that might be
Electrical, like the big breaker has
Finally been thrown.

IV.

Dawn brings a Zhivago landscape.
Tree limbs bowed to the ground
Forming icy arches.
No cars moving...
Silence.

Some sense of normalcy in the
Morning paper being delivered:
Difficult, as it is, to be retrieved.
The driveway a strangely
Canted skating ring.

With 125,000 out, we should know better, but still
The day wears on in expectation.
Small gulps of air taken
At anything that sounds mechanical.

The Shoney's is stacked with people
And still serving the "Breakfast Bar"
As confused survivors draggle in
To long lines and the food almost gone.

The neighborhoods look like war zones.
Will it look like this in the end?
Ice covered and litter of shattered trees?
Roads impassable for modern conveyance.
Buildings revealed that before
Had hidden behind hack berry limbs.
All masks taken away.

V.

By nightfall you realize it won't come soon.
No HBO or MTV or CMT or whatever.
No stereo.
No stove.
No oven.
No laundry.
Or fuzzy warm dryer.
No dishwasher.
No computer.
You are cut off.
Forced to talk to one another.

In this you find calmness and peace.
The anxiety slackens.
Roles are clear.
You cut firewood and haul it
Back to the house.
You provide.
She looks after the children,
Does laundry by hand,
Washes things.
She sustains.
This is not a backward step.
It is an efficient one, it is a necessary one.
The unit works together.

Little House on the Prairie, you gather
In one room.
Wood stove throwing off heat.
Sing songs and rock together
Gently in the half light of the
Flickering, green wood-popping
Fireplace.

The nightly dog walk
Is an eerie scene.
As the temperature warms
And moisture boils off the
Streets,
Lights from cars, slow moving,
Disoriented in the street lampless scene.

Shadows of shattered limbs
Edge nervously into the street
As if the spirits of the now
Rendered tree were afraid
Of being hit yet again.

VI.

On the third day,
Dawn comes on gray
Feathered wings.
The temperature is falling now,
And a new urgency commences.

Though settling into a new routine,
A frustration of disorder grows.
In a brief alienated moment
You share some sense of understanding
With those who endured the
Blitz or even now, Bosnia and acted
As if all was normal.
No match, to be sure,
But a sense of how humanity copes with
Disaster and deprival.
Though creatures of habit,
We can hard-wire around
The problem.
We are strong, we can survive.

Community grows in shared disaster.
People talk to each other
In the grocery store,
In the restaurant,
On the street.
We smile at one another, we
Share our misfortune.
In our deprival we find that
Gem at the heart of our humanity:
We are able to laugh.

VII.

The phone man said:
"Fredericksburg looks like a battle zone."
Fredericksburg was a battle-zone.
The Yankee's Pickett's charge and
We celebrate it by naming
Streets after the battle.

They looted the town
Before they were slaughtered.
Poured molasses on the carpets then
Marched into the massed rifles behind
The stone-wall
And the Confederate Artillery
On Marie's Heights.
It was a glorious suicide.
The wounded moaned in the night
As the temperature fell
And the hot blood froze.
They had poured molasses on the carpets
Then marched.
We name our streets after battles.

The newsman said:
"All NES customers will have power
back tonite."
We have all grown smarter than
The ability of the news to entertain.

We hunker down.
We bring in more wood.
The night will be cold.

VIII.

The fourth day blows in
Clear and cold.
The morning Mass is filled:
Has this been a reminder?
"How great though art" in the warm church.
We pray for peace,
We eat the body,
We restore our hope.

Trying to keep chins up
We return to normal chores:
Cutting up fallen limbs,
Splitting green firewood.
The Lord has provided with fallen trees.
He works in mysterious ways.
You calculate consumption rates in the wood
Stove with the continued cold
And begin to worry.

By now,
You figure you won't have power
"Till summer," the older child says.
You have learned to do
Daylight things by daylight
Nighttime things are few.

You do Chinese at night
And drive home on Tyne.
Here, the heavy artillery was used.
Rows of tree bodies stacked on top
Of each other reducing
The street to one lane.
Fredericksburg is frightening.



IX.

The fifth day is a
Normal working day:
Phone calls to be returned,
Messages to be left,
Wood stove to be stoked.

NES reports the harder hit
Areas will not be restored for
Seven days.
70,000 without and 142 crews working.
They've brought them in from
Chattanooga and Cincinnati.
A Dayton crew is working our street.
Chain saws sing nasally all day.

The refrigerator seal is finally broken.
The interior is a mess of redefined
Shapes and life forms.

At 5:12 P.M. a surge of power brings dim
Electrical light and whirring sounds.
5:14 P.M. the electrical wand is waved
And we are restored!

Giddily we run around the house turning
Lights on and off,
Assessing the situation with the
Clearness of incandescent light.
Though you had steeled yourself for
The long haul,
And older child is disappointed at
The adventure being over,
You are overjoyed.

You feel like you just caught the winning pass
In the end-zone as time expired.
You kneel and give thanks.
Thanks mainly to being wiser
And for being shown how
Distracted we are in the everyday.

For now, the ordeal
Is over.

The rooms will be warm again.
And although it will be longer,
The night will not seem so.