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A few words about Tennessee.
May. 10th, 2010 11:33 amAs I mentioned on Twitter yesterday, we passed through the corner of Tennessee on the way down here... our route would have taken us straight through Nashville where there's a hotel my mother likes, but she made the decision to avoid flood-based detours and free up the rooms for those who really needed them by taking another route.
I haven't really addressed what's happened in the Nashville area, despite having numerous friends there... friends who lost friends to the storm. May 1st was part of a weird and busy weekend for me, a weekend characterized by black mold and death and taking place between two trips out of state whose timing was dictated by outside circumstances. I haven't had time to catch my breath since... well, basically since I got back from Tennessee last month... until now, and at this point I don't really know what to say. I was in Tennessee, hanging out with people from Nashville and the surrounding area, just a week before. My Facebook and Twitter feed were full of people I've met talking about their friend, Joshua Landtroop, who was lost in the flood.
To my friends... to anyone who is grieving or rebuilding... I offer my support, earnest and heartfelt. To everyone, here's a website with some information about what it's like for those on the ground, and an opportunity to give help directly. It's a community-driven effort. The woman running it, Tish Owen, is good people, well-known and well-regarded in the area pagan community.
The Conversation We Aren't Having: lol why do people live in a flood plain herp de derp. First, what the fuck is a flood plain when you get a unprecedented rainfall that leads to record high water marks? Even a house on top of a hill can get flooded out when you get receive one third of your average annual rainfall all at once.
Second, cities don't end up where they are by accident. If there is a city in a flood plain... or below sea level with a great big lake hanging over it or whatever... chances are that it's there for a reason and, if you're part of the same economy it's connected to, then chances are that if that city was gone you would feel the effects.
Third, it's magical thinking of the same species as victim-blaming, pure and simple. When people see a house get blown away, they need to believe that they're the third little piggy, the one who built a house of bricks, and thus made it completely immune to the Big Bad Wolf. There is no amount of foresight, no amount of planning, no amount of doing it right that will make you immune to either death or ruination... and if you're herp derping over other people's tragedies, you probably haven't actually exercised all that much foresight in the first place. You just happened to settle somewhere that isn't in the news for widespread devastation at the moment.
I wasn't going to tack this screed onto this post, but then I went Googling for sources to put up a "other ways you can help" postscript and found blogs and news stories full of that kind of asinine comment. Well, not here.
I haven't really addressed what's happened in the Nashville area, despite having numerous friends there... friends who lost friends to the storm. May 1st was part of a weird and busy weekend for me, a weekend characterized by black mold and death and taking place between two trips out of state whose timing was dictated by outside circumstances. I haven't had time to catch my breath since... well, basically since I got back from Tennessee last month... until now, and at this point I don't really know what to say. I was in Tennessee, hanging out with people from Nashville and the surrounding area, just a week before. My Facebook and Twitter feed were full of people I've met talking about their friend, Joshua Landtroop, who was lost in the flood.
To my friends... to anyone who is grieving or rebuilding... I offer my support, earnest and heartfelt. To everyone, here's a website with some information about what it's like for those on the ground, and an opportunity to give help directly. It's a community-driven effort. The woman running it, Tish Owen, is good people, well-known and well-regarded in the area pagan community.
The Conversation We Aren't Having: lol why do people live in a flood plain herp de derp. First, what the fuck is a flood plain when you get a unprecedented rainfall that leads to record high water marks? Even a house on top of a hill can get flooded out when you get receive one third of your average annual rainfall all at once.
Second, cities don't end up where they are by accident. If there is a city in a flood plain... or below sea level with a great big lake hanging over it or whatever... chances are that it's there for a reason and, if you're part of the same economy it's connected to, then chances are that if that city was gone you would feel the effects.
Third, it's magical thinking of the same species as victim-blaming, pure and simple. When people see a house get blown away, they need to believe that they're the third little piggy, the one who built a house of bricks, and thus made it completely immune to the Big Bad Wolf. There is no amount of foresight, no amount of planning, no amount of doing it right that will make you immune to either death or ruination... and if you're herp derping over other people's tragedies, you probably haven't actually exercised all that much foresight in the first place. You just happened to settle somewhere that isn't in the news for widespread devastation at the moment.
I wasn't going to tack this screed onto this post, but then I went Googling for sources to put up a "other ways you can help" postscript and found blogs and news stories full of that kind of asinine comment. Well, not here.
