How not to handle a local crisis if elected

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie took his lumps last week for going on vacation as a blizzard bore down on his state and for acting the callous clod. Some blogger responses are noteworthy:

The Conscience of a Liberal:

Maybe it’s just my bias that gives me the impression that there are more mean, self-centered whiners on one side of the aisle than on the other; but anyway, a spectacular performance by my governor:

When asked about the hundreds of people trapped in their homes for days, Christie said unless they lived on state roads, it’s not something his administration would have been able to change.

“If someone is snowed into their house, that’s not our responsibility,” Christie said.

When asked about mayors who said they were forced to divert their resources to unplowed state roads instead of clearing local roads Christie said, “I know who these mayors are and they should buck up and take responsibility for the fact that they didn’t do their job.”

Just brimming with generosity, he is.

Mr. Media Training:

Christie’s inaction was a stunning act of political tone deafness. He should have learned from the litany of other recent high-profile optical disasters, such as when:

• President Bush was photographed looking out from his plane over New Orleans days after Hurricane Katrina wiped out the city
• President Obama and Vice President Biden were criticized for playing golf during the B.P. oil spill
• BP CEO Tony Hayward was filmed attending a yacht race as tarballs rushed ashore in Florida

In a crisis, people want to see their leaders at the scene, even if their presence doesn’t actually accomplish anything. Good examples of leaders in crisis include:

• Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s walking with an oxygen mask at Ground Zero in the immediate aftermath of 9/11
• President Bush visiting Ground Zero days after 9/11 and standing next to a rescue worker on a pile of rubble with a megaphone
• President Clinton delivering a tone-perfect speech in Oklahoma City after the bombing of a federal building killed 168 people

... the lessons learned from them remain equally as valid for smaller crises. One of those lessons is this: good leaders are visible during a crisis. In all three of the “bad” examples above, the leaders were AWOL; in all three “good” examples, they were present.

Nashville Flood: The Sequel

After as much as 10 inches of rain overnight in some areas of Middle Tennessee, the Cumberland River is expected to crest near 40' (flood level) by midnight tonight. For those of living blocks away from the Cumberland, this is a cause for concern given that the some of the industrial areas that stand between us and the river will flood tonight.

Metro's private contractor, Hands on Nashville, is organizing volunteers to sandbag.

UPDATE: Art Rogue lives in one of the flood-prone industrial areas around the Cumberland, and he reports on the rising river below in the comments section of this post. He also links to a video made during the May flood from his home. We welcome further updates from Art Rogue.

If anyone else reading Enclave lives close to the river, please update us in the comments section below or send me an e-mail and I'll post it here.

UPDATE: CM J.R. Hollin posted the following video of the rising Cumberland taken earlier today from shore:

UPDATE: Art Rogue has posted his own YouTube video of rising Cumberland:

UPDATE: Here's video I took a couple of hours ago of the Cumberland rising up to the trail along our hyper-local greenway:

2010 Nashville flood: North Nashville believes it is one of the communities ignored by flood relief agencies

Tennessean reporter Nate Rau's coverage of Nashville's neglected neighborhoods is not to be missed:

In the aftermath of the destructive flooding, some neighborhoods feel like they are slipping through the cracks even though the city says it has been sending help as quickly as possible ....

Just as individual volunteers have had to fill the gaps in East and South Nashville, the Bordeaux community, which was hit hard by flooding, has relied on a grass-roots response.

"The response and amount of resources that were put into Bordeaux was slower than some of the other communities that were hit just as hard as Bordeaux," Metro Councilman Lonnell Matthews Jr. said, pointing fingers at government, the media and FEMA. "I'm not saying they shouldn't have gotten attention, but the response time should have been equal."

Matthews said grass-roots organizers were planning to set up a long-term assistance center in the Bordeaux area that will serve residents for months.

Jump over to the Tennessean piece to see how some East and South Nashvillians feel left out of relief, too.

2010 Nashville flood relief: a curious timeline

East Nashville has been a model of self-help in the wake of last week's historic flooding of Middle and West Tennessee. In the absence of immediate outside help, the Moss Rose community set up their own command center to ferry displaced neighbors in and out to collect belongings. In fact, they may have been fortunate to be able to go it alone, because I'm hearing rumblings around that other neighborhoods who waited for promises to be fulfilled lost in the effort to get immediate relief response.

According to once source, even East Nashville's Moss Rose community, which sits on the west bank of the Cumberland River could not get outside relief aid until the Mayor decided to pay them a visit, and with him an entourage. That source gave me the following timeline:

• Moss Rose Drive floods deep.
• Nobody in the Mayor's Office or at the Red Cross shows interest in the destruction until residents in the Mose Rose community start demanding some attention.
• The Mayor schedules a visit to Moss Rose.
• The Red Cross shows up shortly before the Mayor's visit.
• The local news media shows up for the Mayor's photo op.
• The Mayor shows up, shakes some hands, looks inside a damaged house, and leaves.
• The local news media leaves.
• The Red Cross leaves.

I don't know whether the Red Cross came back later, but if it is standard practice of local relief agencies to be more visible when media and Mayor come calling, then neighborhoods who fail to leverage either party or those who do not have East Nashville's community resources are out of luck.

I invite any comments here or e-mails to me from Moss Rose residents or flooded Nashvillians in other parts of town on their experiences with getting relief. The online and broadcast media, both traditional and nontraditional, has been singing the praises of relief agencies and Metro emergency management coordination with practically no criticism. The story about their performance is already being written without dissenting voices in the narrative. Organizations like the Red Cross, Hands on Nashville, Cool People Care, We Are Nashville stand to benefit depending on the narrative told and the history written. Local politicians will run on reputations forged in this crisis, leaving out hyper-local contributions. If there is a minority report on local emergency management we need to make sure it gets included in the story.

2010 Nashville flood: fallout in the New York Times

NY Times op-ed contributor and Nashville author Ann Patchett reflects on the fallout of The Great Nashville Flood of 2010:

The rain is over; what we’re left with is the life that follows weather. We’re waiting to hear if the water treatment plant is going to close, and when the public schools are going to reopen.

There is a charming expression in the South — when someone says he’ll see you soon, you respond, “God willing and the creeks don’t rise.” I finally get it.

The rest is worth the read.

2010 Nashville flood: North Nashville woman tells AP about her escape from flooding

From today's Houston Chronicle:

Evelyn Pearl Bell was thumbing through water damaged items in her home in north Nashville before she got exhausted and had to take a break as temperatures reached 81 by midday. Since the storm flooded her home Sunday, she's had no running water, electricity or telephone service.

Bell said neighbors had to break through a window to get her out of her house and to safety as the waters crept higher and higher. Then they tied her up and dragged her through the water because she couldn't swim, she said.

"When it happened, the guys had to pull me through the water," Bell said.

2010 Nashville flood: we are Nashville, so let's keep community before commodity

By focusing on music festivals and tourism before the Cumberland River has given Nashville its neighborhoods back, NewsChannel5 is not just putting the cart before the horse. The local CBS affiliate is putting commerce ahead of the human scope of this tragedy. They are ignoring the recovery that must happen at structural and infrastructural levels before we can begin to talk about the luxuries of money-saturated parties for out-of-town guests. They are taking their eye off the ball.

The receding flood waters are going to give up more dead Middle Tennesseans in the next few days and weeks. Before we party we need to mourn and bury our dead. We've got a bulging population of homeless families whose houses and lives are underwater now. We're faced with the prospect of growing numbers of Nashvillians suffering injuries and illnesses from this catastrophic floods. Before we party we need to heal the sick and ease the suffering. Is the local health delivery system prepared to do that? I was hearing of oxygen shortages at hospitals during the floods. Can we square away our hospitals and clinics before we crank up the tunes?

Streets and roads have been washed away. Buildings and other structures that have not been destroyed or irreparably harmed by flood waters will need to be repaired and renovated. The industrial areas on both banks of the Cumberland released petroleum and toxic chemicals into the water and the soil and we will are going to have to clean that all up to protect Nashvillians as well as tourists. Before we can join in a festival to celebrate and support the music industry, we have to be able to play safely in and enjoy our own nontoxic neighborhoods again.

Only one of three water treatment plants is operating. Water reserves are at half capacity while people still water their grass. (There may be some justice in that those with the most grass to water in the suburbs will lose water before urban residents if reserves go down). We don't know how or to what length taxed Metro services may function. Once the waters clear, how are we going to clean up the tons of debris and still assure regular garbage pick up? We do not know the degree to which clean-up is going to sap the Metro budget. We also must consider the transportation needs of many more people who lost vehicles.

And how will a vigorous bid for tourism tax our law enforcement services? If initial reports are correct, the Central Police Precinct almost went down to floodwaters itself. The CMA Festival occurs in the Central Precinct. I'm sure officers are working longer shifts through this. Is the music industry going to demand even more of our cops for the June festival?

I hear stories that in the early stages of the Downtown floods, some building owners thoughtlessly rushed to pump out basements and subterranean garages without stopping to think that those flood waters would end up in someone else's garage or down the storm sewers only to be pushed back out into the streets by the Cumberland River. Asking Nashville to hurry and prepare for CMA when the river hasn't returned to it's banks, when people are still being plucked from flooded homesteads, when we have not addressed the human cost (let alone the economic cost) is just as shortsighted and premature as pumping your flood into everyone's flood.

In fact, the demand is callous. We would not expect an employer to demand employees who have been flooded and injured by historic storms to return to work mere days after a tragedy. Why should we accept attempts by local tourism industry leaders to go on TV and leverage Downtown and Greater Nashville back to the task of preparing for the CMA Festival? By airing this story so soon on the heels of disaster, Brent Frazier and NewsChannel5 are enabling an arbitrary and capricious mission to move us away from the sense of community engendered by shared tragedy and toward the commodities of an industry that does not yet have firm footing.

This story is nothing but putting commodity before community at the worse possible time. Just when the community is beginning to pull together to overcome this disaster, we do not need this distraction so early. There will be a time for tourist-scale celebrations that fill industry coffers, but I will be shocked if that time is June. Let tourism protect its financial interests, but let Nashvillians aspire toward a more common, more human interest. If "We are Nashville," the "We" should include everyone affected by the storm's aftermath. All of us need help, but some more than others.

Keith Olbermann's Special Comment on 2010 Nashville flood

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

UPDATE: MSNBC seems to have removed the video. Here is a copy of the same:

Photos of 2010 Nashville flood, including 4th Avenue, North closure

Photos of 2010 Nashville flood, Salemtown primary flood area now is at 4th & Hume

The intersection of 4th Avenue North and Hume Street seems to be the 1st point of flooding for Salemtown due to the Cumberland River's rise. Despite the fact that rain and run-off to the depressed park ballfield ended last night, water has continued to rise and the sewers on the corners stopped gulping water as they did over the weekend. I don't claim to be an engineer, but it looks to me like the flooding is due to a combination of water table rise and the river backing up toward Salemtown through our storm sewers.



The rising water is also driving tenants of the partially inundated Shiloh Apartments like this fellow to voluntarily evacuate (photo credit: Donna Keeney). According to news reports, the Cumberland River is suposed to crest between 8:00 and 11:00 tonight, although dam engineers up river have talked about releasing more water into the Cumberland to relieve pressure.

Photos: The last 2010 Nashville flood picture Metro allowed me to take of Central Wastewater Treatment plant

I took these photos shortly after 3:00p from the 2nd Avenue North road block Metro Water Services had set up to keep traffic out of the Cumberland River area. As you can see, the flooding river has totally breached the embankment I stood on this morning to make photos, as well as covered Cement Plant Road.

As I snapped these, a MWS truck drove up and told the security guard need needed to move the road block about 2 blocks farther away to Van Buren Street, so I feel fortunate to have taken these when I did. Reports are circulating that the treatment plant is now inundated and no longer operating. Reportedly sewerage is flowing into the Cumberland River.

Photo of 2010 Nashville flood: Salemtown, 3rd Avenue, North closed by flooding

This portion of Salemtown's east border was closed down before 4:00p.

Photos of 2010 Nashville flood, MetroCenter levee, Cumberland River

I took these photos from the Clarksville Highway bridge on the northwest side of the Cumberland River Levee Greenway at MetroCenter about 4 hours ago.

Photos of 2010 Nashville flood, Central Wastewater Treatment Plant, Downtown Connector Greenway, Cumberland River

I took the following photos several hours ago along the last embankment separating the Cumberland River from the Metro Water Services Central Wastewater Treatment Plant. The river comes up to the embankment and Cement Plant Road in places and spills over in others. The non-flood river's edge is typically 200-300 feet from this embankment. As a result large sections of the Downtown Greenway connector that runs along this route are submerged by water, in some cases, yards of water.




The first three pictures are of flooded biosolids facility of the MWS and the greenway that runs past it.

The next three were taken from Cement Plant Road toward the Cumberland River.






Flood water streamed into the treatment toward holding tanks, partially submerging a security fence and treatment machinery.




Finally, more photos from the road toward the Cumberland. The second picture in this series shows the Cumberland swallowing the road toward the north, barring access to the MetroCenter levee, which starts just north of the I-65 bridge in the background. The local news media report that the MetroCenter levee is leaking.

Photo: despite Cumberland River flood Metro Water's chlorine gas tanks sandbagged and dry, for now

I took this photo at 7:30 this morning on Cement Plant Road as the Cumberland River continued to rise behind me. The hazardous chlorine gas Metro Water Services uses to treat Downtown area water are exposed as usual, but they have been sandbagged against rising flood waters about 4' away from them. Local news media report that river levels are expected to continue to rise through the day.

2010 Nashville flood: Salemtown resident observes attempts to protect Metro Water Service chlorine tankers from rising Cumberland River

The following disturbing e-mail was sent to the Salemtown Neighbors list from a local resident attempting to monitor the rising Cumberland River flood waters near the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant:

I'm at 2nd Ave and Cement Plant Rd (by metro water). They've blocked the road because they are doing some major opperation to contain the Chlorine storage area that is flooded (or in danger of it).

Their head of security, Mr. Jobe, got in my farce and very aggressive. When I asked him if we were in any danger. he refused to answer and told me to leave. I'm now parked on the (public) road where he can't be a dick. Nasty smells are over here though. Pass the news along and alert the press. We could have a problem.

Last fall, I blogged on the risk of Metro storing chlorine tankers in an open, exposed area. I'm not aware of any media coverage of this risk or measures taken to protect the community from a chlorine spill, but this is an alarming situation.

Photos of 2010 Nashville flood, Cumberland River, Central Wastewater Treatment Plant

Before sundown I took one more trip 5 blocks east to check out the Cumberland River's rise. The difference since this morning is dramatic. Usually the river is some 200-225' down the embankment from Cement Plant Road (old 2nd Avenue), which stands between the river & the Central Wastewater Treatment Plant.

This evening, as shown in the photos below, the water is a few feet from topping the embankment and spilling on to the road. As I write it may already be there. I don't know. But I did see a number of Metro Water Service employees on the road waiting for something. Not a sand bag in sight. You should be able to see the roofs of a couple of submerged sheds clearly below the road.






FEBRUARY 23, 2019 UPDATE: today's rain amount made this the wettest February in Nashville on record since 1880 (by the way, the wettest month on record in Nashville was May 2010). For the sake of comparison, look at photos from this afternoon in basically the same places along the Cumberland River Greenway.

Photos of 2010 Nashville flood, Farmers' Market, Bicentennial Mall, Rosa Parks Boulevard (8th Avenue)

Flood scenes around the foot of Capitol Hill (Tennessee Capitol Building). I took all of these photos this afternoon.

Brooksley Born's warnings ignored by Clinton, Bush, & Obama at America's peril

Did you see Frontline tonight on the low level Washington bureaucrat who took on the White House titans to try to regulate the "dark market" derivatives of banking but lost? Her loss in 1998 became America's loss in 2007.

The entire Frontline episode can be seen after the jump.

TVA's Fish Reproduction Switch

From the Times Freep:

University scientists said they expect the toxicity levels — particularly of selenium — to rise, especially with the dredging [TVA] recently began [to clean up the Kingston coal ash spill]. The study states additional intake of selenium severely could affect fish reproduction.

Fish reproductive systems soon likely could be so damaged from the toxic levels of selenium that their eggs and young will die, and their population eventually will be eliminated, said Dr. Dennis Lemly, adjunct professor of biology at Wake Forest University.

The report states selenium concentrations in fish species in the Emory River are “at toxic thresholds.”

“This means that the river ecosystem cannot tolerate further assimilation of selenium from the ash spill,” the report states. “There is no margin of safety.”

Dr. Lemly said findings of such high levels indicate the landfill had been leaking before the December breach.

The Tennessee Aquarium also had scientists involved in this study.