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Brenden
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« on: May 03, 2010, 09:33:26 AM » |
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You may or may not have heard about all the flooding over the last couple days here in Nashville. The Opryland hotel, which is next to the mall where Rainforest is, where I work, has six feet of water in the building. No word yet on how bad the damage is to the mall and restaurant, but it doesn't look good at all.
Still, at least I have my second job, as far as I know Nashville Pix is fine. Downtown Nashville did get hit pretty hard, though.
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Vlad!
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« Reply #1 on: May 03, 2010, 09:43:39 AM » |
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Wow, somehow I managed to miss all of that. Please be sure to keep us posted, and I'll be praying for you and the city.
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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Brenden
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« Reply #2 on: May 03, 2010, 11:33:15 AM » |
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It didn't get much national coverage, which is odd considering how devastating the damage has been
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Vlad!
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« Reply #3 on: May 03, 2010, 12:09:47 PM » |
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It didn't get much national coverage, which is odd considering how devastating the damage has been
CNN is too busy talking about the oil spill. |
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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RedcoatJones
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« Reply #4 on: May 03, 2010, 04:12:11 PM » |
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Atlanta had flood like that last fall, and I know how devastating flood waters can be (I was lucky, but I had coworkers that had major damage to their homes).
Try to stay dry!
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Brenden
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« Reply #5 on: May 03, 2010, 06:39:04 PM » |
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No final word yet, but it's pretty safe to say that I won't be working at Rainforest Cafe for a couple months at least.
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murlough23
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« Reply #8 on: May 04, 2010, 03:54:15 PM » |
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Seems like whenever somebody gets flooded, it's only a blip on the news radar outside of that specific area. Katrina was an exception; maybe some other hurricanes in the Gulf area have gotten extensive coverage in the past. But for floods, I only ever hear passing mentions of it. I wonder if the reverse is true whenever we have an earthquake out here.
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Vlad!
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« Reply #9 on: May 04, 2010, 05:04:35 PM » |
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I think every time you have an earthquake over mag 5 or so the news media start hoping that it's a sign of the Big One. That said, I'd guess that the coverage of the Tennessee flooding is about equal to the coverage given to a California earthquake of relatively modest magnitude.
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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murlough23
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« Reply #10 on: May 04, 2010, 05:13:18 PM » |
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I think every time you have an earthquake over mag 5 or so the news media start hoping that it's a sign of the Big One.
Your news media, or ours? Ours does it at any little shake that's large enough to be felt. Some of it's sensationalism; some of it's a genuinely worthwhile push for preparedness. (I finally got my act together and put a flashlight by the bed and moved some breakable/heavy stuff after the 7.2 that hit Mexicali last month.) I'd much rather deal with quakes than floods, though. Sure, quakes are sudden and hard to gauge during the emergency itself, but they're over quick and unless they're truly massive, life goes back to normal within a day or two. Most of what we've built out here is up to code since the Northridge Quake in '94, if it wasn't previously, so I'm generally not too worried about quakes unless the timing's really bad and I'm under a freeway overpass or in an elevator or something. Floods can probably be seen coming a little farther in advance, but the damage and interruption to infrastructure appear to take forever to deal with. I was actually wondering if there was a place in the U.S. that was not vulnerable to any notable natural disasters. Fresno and much of California's central valley seem to only get thick, dense fog that can cause highway pile-ups. Maybe occasionally they feel a quake from the San Andreas. Vegas gets freakin' hot in the summer and freakin' cold in the winter, but at worst they get heavy thunderstorms. No river running through town, so their floods don't get as massive as a place like Nashville, and they're far enough away from the California faults that they're only ever gonna get a slight rattle. |
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Vlad!
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« Reply #11 on: May 04, 2010, 05:20:04 PM » |
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Depends on your definition of notable, I suppose. Tennessee and Kentucky are generally pretty isolated from stuff like this; I was really surprised to see flooding of this magnitude. Any state up north is vulnerable to blizzards, but generally they're also pretty well prepared for stuff like that so it might not constitute true notability.
I was talking with a friend just today about how the Raleigh area is pretty safe; it takes a pretty epic hurricane to make it this far inland, tornadoes are a rare event, we go to DEFCON 5 when a single snowflake touches the ground so our "blizzards" are business as usual for any state north of the Mason-Dixon line, we're not on or near any fault lines, we're landlocked so nobody's going to wreck their oil tanker near us...
The same really applies to most of the places I've lived; Knoxville got of quite well with the flooding, and I lived in Blacksburg, VA for five years and the worst natural disaster was a two-foot snowfall that they had plowed by the afternoon.
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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murlough23
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« Reply #12 on: May 04, 2010, 05:28:28 PM » |
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Depends on your definition of notable, I suppose. Tennessee and Kentucky are generally pretty isolated from stuff like this; I was really surprised to see flooding of this magnitude. I suppose this means we can't always gauge the vulnerability of certain places we assume to be safe. I always figured Hawaii was safe from earthquakes, then they had a pretty major one in 2006 that knocked out power on several islands. Any state up north is vulnerable to blizzards, but generally they're also pretty well prepared for stuff like that so it might not constitute true notability. we go to DEFCON 5 when a single snowflake touches the ground Shoot, we go to DEFCON 5 when a single raindrop touches the ground. |
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Brenden
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« Reply #13 on: May 04, 2010, 06:10:42 PM » |
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We've had some pretty bad blizzards back home, but since those are fairly common in the area we know how to deal with them and it usually doesn't need to be big news. If we got a big earthquake, though, it would be pretty bad since all we ever got back home in my lifetime was a little quake one time that lasted a few minutes and caused little damage. If it happened and caused millions of dollars in damage and deaths and thousands without jobs and the news media barely reported on it, it would be strange because it's a really unusual thing to happen in that area so it would likely be more devastating than if it happened in a state more prone to earthquakes.
Nashville, however, is not a flood area. hell, most of the people who lost their homes didn't have flood insurance because nobody can remember it ever flooding like this. It was a surprise to everyone and most people here are frustrated that it's barely getting mentioned in favor of immigration laws and a bomb that didn't go off. Those stories are worth reporting on and all, but we have thousands without homes or jobs or both, immense property destruction and damage to the local economy with businesses saying it would take months and million of dollars to repair, and a rising death toll. Three days later, news sources started to give the old, "Oh, yeah, Nashville has been flooded and stuff".
For me personally, I keep getting good news today. Nashville Pix is still operational and I still have my job there and will even be getting a more regular paycheck from them, twice monthly instead of once a month. Plus, the water has receded from Opry Mills and cleanup at Rainforest could start as early as Friday. I guess there wasn't any serious damage done to the restaurant, since my boss implied we fared better than most of the mall and would be ready to reopen faster. Corporate is sending a team of people in to help get ready and when we reopen just depends on word from the mall, so it looks like it won't be as bad as I was afraid of on my part of things.
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murlough23
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« Reply #14 on: May 04, 2010, 06:16:57 PM » |
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If we got a big earthquake, though, it would be pretty bad since all we ever got back home in my lifetime was a little quake one time that lasted a few minutes and caused little damage. Little ones usually don't last that long. That's usually an indicator that it's a big one, farther away. Not sure how far this is from Nashville, but this fault zone was apparently strong enough to reroute a river in the early 1800s (resulting in the isolated "Kentucky Bend" that is detached from the rest of the state): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_ZoneIt was a surprise to everyone and most people here are frustrated that it's barely getting mentioned in favor of immigration laws and a bomb that didn't go off. I take this as evidence that "What we can use to scare you into watching because there's some remote chance it could hurt you" trumps "Having compassion for what's happening to other people, but won't directly affect you" when it comes to prioritizing news stories. I can't wait to hear Pat Robertson's take on this one. |
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Vlad!
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« Reply #15 on: May 04, 2010, 06:34:31 PM » |
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What with all the talk about global warming and what's going on in Tennessee, I'm really tempted to add flood insurance to my homeowner's policy. Since Morrisville isn't exactly a flood plane I don't think it will be that expensive, and I would much rather pay a hundred extra bucks a year than ten thousand once in my lifetime.
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If you don’t have freedom as a principle, you can never see a reason not to make an exception. There are constantly going to be times when for one reason or another there’s some practical convenience in making an exception.
rms
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Brenden
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« Reply #16 on: May 04, 2010, 06:37:46 PM » |
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My wife and I have decided that no matter where we buy a house, we are getting flood insurance just in case.
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RedcoatJones
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« Reply #17 on: May 04, 2010, 08:55:53 PM » |
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Little ones usually don't last that long. That's usually an indicator that it's a big one, farther away. Not sure how far this is from Nashville, but this fault zone was apparently strong enough to reroute a river in the early 1800s (resulting in the isolated "Kentucky Bend" that is detached from the rest of the state): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_ZoneI take this as evidence that "What we can use to scare you into watching because there's some remote chance it could hurt you" trumps "Having compassion for what's happening to other people, but won't directly affect you" when it comes to prioritizing news stories. I can't wait to hear Pat Robertson's take on this one. The East Coast has had a few notable earthquakes, but none in recent memory. I remember studying the New Madrid in school, and that "some river" was the Mississippi flowing backwards! That earthquake was felt as far away as Atlanta. |
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murlough23
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« Reply #18 on: May 04, 2010, 08:59:15 PM » |
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The East Coast has had a few notable earthquakes, but none in recent memory. I remember studying the New Madrid in school, and that "some river" was the Mississippi flowing backwards! That earthquake was felt as far away as Atlanta.
I think those quakes were even larger than some of California's worst, but then again, they are predicting that minor faults around here have been egging the San Andreas into unleashing a huge one for many years now. I only know about stuff like this because I'm such a geography nerd. (And yet I didn't know how far away Nashville was.  ) |
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Brenden
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« Reply #19 on: May 05, 2010, 12:50:26 PM » |
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Good news, bad news day!
Good news is that Rainforest will be cleaned up and ready to go before anyone else and my managers have been awesome keeping the employees updated as soon as they find out anything.
Bad news is that they can't open again until the mall opens, about 4 or 5 months, so they advise we look for other work temporarily and we can reapply when the store re-opens.
This is gonna suck, it was hard enough to find a job before, now it gets worse as thousands are looking for new jobs.
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bloop
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« Reply #20 on: May 05, 2010, 01:36:41 PM » |
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I'm praying for you. Keep us updated.
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