Katya Comes to Memphis

Currently Reading: Operation Red Jericho by Joshua Mowll

Well, the remnants of Katya finally made it up here to Memphis last night. Thanks to a front that's been trying to push its way down, Katya slid a bit to the east of us and didn't bring much with her. We got some heavy rain last night and there were some pockets of damage or flooding but otherwise she didn't do much more than knock the leaves out of some trees.

There were some exceptions of course. You have to understand though that most of the time, in Memphis, when there's damage from a storm, it's usually our fault. The flooding here is usually due to clogged storm sewer grates. I've seen that several times, especially in the fall. Tree damage is usually limited to the trees that either aren't supposed to grow here or aren't properly taken are of. Older, larger trees really need to be checked for disease and weak spots. It keeps branches from falling onto your house when the winds kick up.

During this morning's walk with the dogs, I looked around to see what sort of damage we had. There were a few branches down (Bradford Pear trees which NEVER do well in high winds) and some signs of debris flying. A few roofing shingles here and there. In our building, the only damage I know about was to the folks in the apartment below us. They had a leak. Funny actually, we're the apartment with the actual ROOF and it's the one BELOW us that gets the leak. Near as I can figure, the water blew in from the dryer vent (which is missing it's rain-guard cover) and found its way into their ceiling. Oh, and we also had a hanging decoration blow down. I found it in the bushes below our balcony. I'll have to clean that up later and hang it back up.

So, no worries for us folks. We got off pretty easy. It's the folks south of us who really got hit. I also hear that there was some damage to the east, up in Nashville. Nothing compared to what happened to New Orleans and Gulf Port of course. Damn shame what happened to those folks. I try to imagine being stuck in the New Orleans Superdome in August with no power, no AC and a whole lot of other people. Hope those folks can get out of there soon because that's a tragedy just waiting to happen.

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