My Grandmother was the first female Conservation Officer in West Virginia History. She used to tell us stories of the lumber camps and hunting trips she and my Grandfather would go on. One of my favorite stories was that about the Big Blowdown, not the 1950 one that hit West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, but the one before that that, back around the 1920's. She told of a giant windstorm (hurricane) that came through the mountains and flattened whole acres of woods. Miles upon miles of coniferous trees laid flat by winds that pushed through. The best part of the story is when some of the loggers that worked for her found a Big Foot trapped in hole covered with trees. They discovered him while they were removing the fresh lumber to take it to the mill. The animal escaped after the hole was uncovered and they described it as a large hairy ape that must have escaped from a traveling circus. They didn't know they had found a genuine legendary ?Big Foot? creature.
This modern day monster story told to me by someone I knew and trusted captivated the imagination of a young boy and it wasn't until I became an adult that I realized that Big Foot wasn't the real story, it was the hurricane winds that devastated such a large area inland. Back then you didn't have a large area of infrastructure that could be damaged. People got by without the amenities that we take for granted. They got by and made due after a storm that today leaves people complaining and whining.
Modern man is ill prepared to face the worst that Mother Nature can throw at us. In our techno age of iPods, blackberries and instant messaging we forget that the earth spins no differently than it has since the dawn of time. AL Gore would have us believe that modern man is the cause of global warming which in turn is the cause of these devastating storms. Even though I love Al for inventing the internet, I think he is a buffoon for trying to get people to blame someone else for naturally occurring events. September 14, 2008 the people of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana were reminded that we don't own this planet or the space we occupy on it; we are here only at the sufferance of Mother Nature. I got tired of people whining and complaining that they lost power and LG&E didn't get it back on quickly enough. They fail to realize that as populations throughout the world increase so will the devastation and loss when one of these storms comes ripping through. How many times throughout history has this happened in our area? Nobody knows because much of what occurred that predates the westward spread of civilization has gone undocumented. Here are some of the things I witnessed this week: My oldest daughter was almost crushed in her car that fell seconds after she pulled past it as she pulled into my driveway. It missed her by the grace of God. For that I am thankful. I walked across the street too my neighbors house. He had heard the tree fall and was putting on his boots. Shawn got out his chainsaw and as he cut branches I would pull them away and stack them in the yard. We were soon joined by 2 of our other neighbors Rod and Joe who came without asking and pitched in and helped. That is what neighbors did in many areas of Louisville this week, but not all of them. I joked with them and told them we should probably do the Democratic thing and just leave it in the street and wait for the government to come and do something about it. We could even apply for a FEMA card and get the news people to do a story about how we were trapped in our neighborhood and left to fend for ourselves. As a Police Officer I saw firsthand that many neighbors chipped in to help other neighbors. I have also seen that scumbags and thieves don't change during emergencies and that liberals still whine and complain about the government not doing enough for them. My advice to you people that think that the government will come to your rescue or that the power company can keep enough people on staff to replace 547 broken poles (orig. 130-140) & 9,206 wires down (originally 3,000)overnight is to; "Wake the hell up." Walk around your neighborhood and you will see the ones I am talking about. They still haven't cleaned up the broken branches from their yard. They are the ones that rushed to the gas station to fill up and then had no place to go. They are the ones that call in to the radio stations and complain because nobody came to help them. They are the ones that didn't plan ahead and have candles, flashlights and spare batteries on hand. Their freezer full of tofu went belly up because they expected the magic to always be there. I would also like to remind them to look at where this storm passed through before it got to us. Look at the people of Galveston and Houston who's houses now resemble matchsticks before you start complaing.
I have seen for the first time in my career an emergency declared by the Chief which allows him to call people into work and actually suspends certain portions of the contract (and rightfully so). What is really unusual is the huge commitment our department had for the Ryder Cup this week and it has now been increased by the extra workload heaped upon us. This is the first chance I have had to get onto a computer in days. Yesterday we finally got a generator and have a few lights at our division. Yes Mr. Mayor we don't have either an express line from LG&E or back-up generators at most of our substations. We, the POLICE were left in the dark too. That was very poor planning on someone's part . I will blame Metro Government for that one. It is hard to provide services and coordinate responses without access to computers and lights to work under.
I received and e-mail from someone complaining about an Officer that was on his cell phone while on a traffic detail. OH MY GOD! In this entire crisis you had nothing better to do then complain about a policeman momentarily distracted and using his phone. I believe I will block you IP address from this website. I would like to personally thank my Brothers and Sisters in Blue, all of the firefighters, EMS, Dispatchers, Call Takers, Metro Parks and SWMS, power company employees and all others that worked throughout this crisis to keep our community safe. In case you didn't realize it, our families needed us too. Our homes were without power. Our kids were home from school and our yards & neighborhoods had to be cleaned up too. We all made it to work. Some came in on off days. The citizens of Louisville can be proud of their emergency service workers that put the community before their own families. We all came to work and will continue to do so. I won't see an off day until the middle of next week, but then that is what we do.
When you leave comments to this article, I ask you not to succumb to rumor or innuendo. If you saw something, jot it down here. If you know of someone that needs recognition mention their name. We have a pretty good hometown here and it took a lot of good people pitching in to make it thus far. We have all heard rumors that Valhalla received preference. Unless you know facts don't bother posting.
Again I would like especially thank the men and women of LMPD that I work with for being there for me, for my family and for our community.