The Great Ice Storm of '09 Day 4 1/2

The thawing (thankfully) continues for the folks here in Daviess County and Owensboro. Still no power for me, but I have heat for my house with some propane burners. Don't worry, I'm not sleeping there so no carbon monoxide poisoning for me. Propane has been easy enough to procure, just a 30 minute wait today, 20 minutes of that wait was because the truck to refill the tanks at the service station was late. Gasoline has also been fairly easy to get. Most gas stations are up and running. I would say that most transactions are still taking place with cash as all the credit card machines were knocked out due to the phone/communication outages. Restaurants are open and the city is slowly returning to a sense of normalcy, although there is a long way to go. Tomorrow is another warm day so most of the ice should be off the power lines and trees.

As far as the power situation is concerned, blocks of the city are coming back online. . .very slowly. . .but there is visible progress. Most traffic lights are working. I am starting to see more bucket trucks and electrical workers out and about. The county situation looks a little worse off but I have heard that there is power returning to some portions of the county.


Now for the curmudgeon part - where the heck has the state government and FEMA been??? The city and county government agencies, police, firefighters, utilities, etc. . . have been doing a heck of a dragging the city up onto its feet. What I haven't really seen are the national gaurd or and national agencies on the streets doing anything. Sure I've seen a humvee or two puttering around and some vehicles with FEMA markings but I've really not noticed them doing anything, no soldiers in uniforms with chainsaws clearing downed tree-limbs or water being made available for those without it, you know, the kind of things these guys are supposed to be doing during a disaster. Maybe those guys are concentrating on harder hit areas but according to this report, maybe they aren't. Maybe its the nature of Kentuckians to be self reliant and dependent on our own to get through these types of things. Maybe we just aren't yelling loud enough. To the higher powers out there - what part of 500,000 people with no electricity (and portions without water) in the freezing cold doesn't suggest a major response is needed.

Anyways, yes things seem to be getting better, however slowly, necessary supplies are available with a little work finding them. There has no real looting and no real panic. It is still advisable to keep generators under lock and key and vital supplies under a watchful eye. All-in-all we seem to be handling this situation like previous situations; Hurricane Ike, tornadoes, etc. . ., we are all brushing ourselves off, getting back on our feet, and trying to keep in a cheerful mood.

Owensboro Downtown master plan - part one

So our fair city has decided to "revitalize" the downtown area once again. I won't do any research about how many times Owensboro has "revitalized" their downtown, although it has been several times that I can recall. Downtown buildings have been remodeled, re-opened, and are currently re-decaying from little to no use.

The riverpark center with its IBMA headquarters and bluegrass museum was supposed to put us on the map. It didn't take long for the IBMA to flee to Nash-vegas. Now the only events being hosted by the big red tobacco barn by the river seem to be proms and afternoon performances for busloads of children. Actually the best use I have seen of the place in a long time will be the superbowl party thrown for the city residents during this time of disaster. In defense of the riverpark center, I think the Friday after Five series and Winter Wonderland events have been phenomenal successes, but these two events can only fill at most 20% of the center's calendar.

The focus of this new revitalization revolves around a "Downtown Master Plan". Downtown will be transformed into a "walkable city" and I'm sure the term "mixed-use" has been thrown around several times too. Apparently all these big-time professional city planning "gurus" have decided that cities of the future will be made up of these tiny communities where everything is in one little area. You will basically live in an apartment above where you work and will walk across the street for groceries and one block down to see a show. Apparently, the great leaders of Owensboro have been drinking the kool-aid prepared by these "gurus".

On paper this vision of a mixed-use community is not at all bad in my opinion. However, in order to have a successful mixed use development, it must truly be mixed use, meaning grandma is living next to the twenty-something year old couple with four kids and the drug store for grandma to pick up her prescriptions is next to the honky-tonk bar frequented by the twenty-something year old couple. Once the grandma's overrun the youngin's or vice-versa, your mixed-use development becomes a retirement village or a ghetto. In addition your "big box" stores are typically frowned upon in such areas so no walking to wal-mart grandma.

Lending institutions realize that creating (and maintaining) this mixed-use utopia is risky and therefore it is hard for developers to get the funding to put together such a project. So how do you get a project like this off the ground - well you let the taxpayers of the city take the through the issuance of bonds to finance the project. Wait, did I just say that - an investment is too risking for a lending institution so taxpayers should foot the project? Sounds like the taxpayers of Owensboro are going into the junkbond business.

When Keith Lawrence isn't to fond on some new "vision" for Owensboro, red flags should start waving, and he is staying on the fence on this one (by the way, read the article online quick, before the MandI cranks back on the free access). Will this round of revitalizing be any different? I know where I'm placing my bet on that one, but I'm not tipping my hand just yet...more to come later. Fire away in the comments and we will see how far down this rabbit hole we go.

The great ice storm of '09 Day 3

From Owensboro Ice Storm

If you aren't from Kentucky, then you probably haven't heard much about our fair cities ordeals theses past few days.  Between Monday and Tuesday of this week, we received (depending on where you lived in the region) an inch or two of ice and several inches of snow.  Tuesday night was an interesting night (when we received about 1/2 to an inch of ice), imagine hearing 4-6 inch thick tree limbs snapping and falling all night long, one after another, just hoping the next one doesn't come through the roof.  In case you've never experienced an ice storm, ice and trees don't mix.  In addition, falling tree limbs have an affinity for power lines.  When all is said and done, you have close to 700,000 people in Kentucky without power.  19,000 out of 26,000 Owensboro Municipal Utility customers were part of that 700,000.  Resident's of Muhlenberg county are being told to pack it up and leave, power won't be back for at least a month (of course, I would encourage anyone to leave Muhlenberg county regardless of its powered status).  Its going to be awhile before things are back to normal for everyone.

From Owensboro Ice Storm

Internet service has finally began to stabilize and the whirr of generators can be heard throughout the land.  Power is still out where I live, but I am keeping my house above freezing with a propane heater.  Personally, I'm hoping to have power back by the end of next week, although I am not holding my breath.  The hopes of getting a generator at this time are slim (Home Depot has had several shipments, yesterday, there were over 300 people in line waiting for the next shipment), the gas stations that have power have cars line up 3-4 deep waiting for gas,  the lines for propane are even longer.  I think things may get worse before they get better.  Several counties are reporting water shortages due to loss of power at their pumps. 

Now for come complaining - and this section applies to the day(s) after hurricane Ike also - I was always taught that when a traffic light is not powered (as is the case for the majority of traffic lights right now) the intersection should be treated as a four way stop.  I hope one of you idiots that blow through these intersections gets t-boned and your precious 1995 4-wheel drive, straight pipe exhaust, primer red, jacked up with knobby tires and rims that cost more than the truck you drive, gets totalled.  That goes the same for you too soccer mom in the Excursion who is in a hurry because their little Johnny needs orange juice.  As a matter of fact, anyone who drives something larger than a car that has any type of sticker in the back window (I really dont' care what your daughter's softball uniform number is, if you are a cowboy, or apparently think one of those tribal tatoo looking things looks really cool on your back glass) should be automaticaly ticketed if they are seen a half mile from their house.  Next time we have a bad storm, I ask you to perform an experiment, of all the vehicles that have run off the road, how many of these are 1:Larger than a car and 2:have some inane sticker in their back window.

Alright, enough complaining for now.  I do have to compliment the county road crews for getting the roads in good shape (in some cases better than city streets). 

The obligatory first post

So I guess this first post should maybe explain what the heck is going on here.  I figured since I'm living in Owensboro now (born and raised in Owensboro thank you), I might as well complain about it. I mean, everyone else does, I might as well jump on the bandwagon too.  And who knows, I may just find a few good things about the town too.  The big-whigs of the Big O are always talking about how the town is progressing and getting better, I guess now that can officially proclaim that they have their first online (real) critic.  Not someone "blogging" about Owensboro when in reality they are just pumping out the PR.  Well, strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.  Comments are welcome and appreciated.