Down the Drain

The package was here, mid-April, when I got back from a business trip. It was from Julie Todd in the City of Atlanta's Department of Watershed Management and in it there were three large, sturdy plastic stencils, with "NO DUMPING" across the top, "DRAINS TO STREAM" across the bottom, and an outline drawing of a fish in the middle. Different cities mark storm drains in different ways, but the problem is the same everywhere -- anything dumped in the street that "washes away" with the rain ends up in storm water which goes down a storm drain and ends up, untreated, in surface water, somewhere.

Many of the houses on Wessyngton Road have green space behind them. That green space is there not because early developers of the neighborhood loved trees so much, but because the trees are growing in ditches and ravines that carry runoff away when it rains. There aren't permanent creeks at the bottom of the ravines, necessarily, but the water flows downhill and then feeds into creeks that feed into larger streams that eventually feed into something that feeds into the Chattahoochee River. Storm water from this end of Wessyngton flows downhill to Cumberland, where 5 storm drains take it to a creek that carries it to underground storm drainage that ends up as the creek in the Nature Trail, just past Sunken Garden Park. From there it goes to the South Fork of Peachtree Creek, along Lenox Road, and then to the Chattahoochee River.

So a couple of weeks ago Iain and I went out on a Sunday morning with stencils and spray paint to mark the storm drains on Wessyngton Road. ("Does the city know you're doing this?" Tom asked, I think envisioning having to come bail me out of jail. "That's who sent me the stencils," I told him, "so I think it's okay.") We used way too much paint on the first one, but after that they looked great. Here's an example:



We labelled all five of the storm drains at Cumberland and Wessyngton, and one of the ones on Wessyngton up the street toward Highland; we couldn't get the other one because a car was parked close to it and we were afraid we'd get paint on it. (Speaking of which -- I had no idea that one has to show an ID to purchase spray paint at Home Depot. I apparently did not look like a vandal, and the clerk waved off my offer to show her my drivers' license when prompted to do so at self-service checkout.) After that, there's the rest of the neighborhood to go.

I was in Idaho last week, and although work kept me busy most of the time I was there, I did get out briefly a couple of times to explore a little. And I was delighted to look down and see this in Boise, Idaho:



I've seen signs on storm drains in Boston and in Baltimore too. So here's another item that can be added to that master index that captures Things That Matter about Quality of Life - does someone care enough to remind other people about storm water, and that nothing really "washes away," it just goes downstream?

Here in Morningside, Iain and I will do our part.

Tornadoes in the Time of Twitter

It's now been two weeks since my hometown of Woodward, Oklahoma, was hit by a tornado. It was a weekend when - for the second time ever - the National Weather Service issued tornado warnings more than 24 hours in advance, this time for Oklahoma, Kansas, and other Plains states. Friday afternoon a tornado hit near Norman, and that was just the beginning. All day Saturday storms were moving through Oklahoma and Kansas; we had the Weather Channel on, and I kept seeing the parts of the map that included towns where I used to live. When I went to bed, it seemed like Woodward might have dodged the bullet in spite of multiple tornadoes being spotted in the county, but on Sunday morning when I got up, there was the news that Woodward had been hit.

It was just after midnight. Most of the town's tornado sirens had been taken out a lightning strike; I'm not sure if it was during that final storm or during one of the others earlier in the day. The tornado tracked along the northwestern edge of town, leveling some homes and damaging many more, and damaging some businesses, including the movie theater. Four of the six deaths were among residents of a trailer park.

Although the national media did cover the story, it was really local efforts, from the local newspaper and social media, that did the job. The Woodward News was providing updates by Twitter and posting photos on Facebook. Very soon after the tornado someone - or maybe a couple of people - from Joplin, Missouri, created Woodward Tornado Info on Facebook. It was rapidly handed off to Woodward natives Amber Wolanski and Lindsey Snider-Scotney, and became a community bulletin board to share up-to-the-minute information about needs, volunteer opportunities, scams, where do make cash donations, and more recently fundraisers. Matt Lehenbauer, Woodward's Emergency Management Director, told the Woodward News, "It has been an absolute godsend for recruiting volunteers...We've been able to rapidly fill needs in just a minute or an hour or 2. It's been phenomenal in recovery."   Mr. Lehenbauer said there were plans to have social media team to help with disasters in the future.  He's convinced it's valuable, but needs help to use it most effectively.  He told the Woodward News that the local emergency management team "may take volunteers who like to be on Facebook and are good with computers to help down the road."

Although the Governor of Oklahoma asked for Federal assistance, Woodward wasn't eligible for FEMA disaster relief (I think the criteria are that the destruction has to exceed what can be dealt with using local and state resources, and given what all has been done already I guess I see the point), but local businesses are eligible for loans from the Small Business Administration. Local banks and the Chamber of Commerce are collecting donations for the Woodward Tornado Relief Fund. Apache Corporation, an oil and gas company, donated $350,000 to upgrade the city's tornado warning system; there's been some other large corporate and personal donations as well. Larry Gatlin of the Gatlin Brothers did a benefit concert in Woodward that raised more than $50,000, and Woodward Tornado Info is working on getting more musicians to come to Woodward for tornado relief events.

Woodward was hit by a tornado in 1947. That storm destroyed much of the town and killed around a hundred people. "Back in those days, the National Weather Service forbid their forecasters from using the word tornado in their forecasts, a practice that continued until 1950. The only weather alarms were sounded by rural telephone supervisors calling each other." When the 1947 tornado struck, it was the third day of a national telephone strike, and there had been picket lines in Woodward; after the storm, the local telephone operators returned to work in spite of the strike.

Even though the sirens didn't sound on April 15, the Oklahoma City television stations were broadcasting warnings, as were weather radios. Others in Woodward got telephone calls from family or friends. Now, the new sirens are getting installed, and the Woodward News and Woodward Tornado Info are doing a great job of sharing information. And the National Weather Service -- long over their reluctance to talk about tornadoes in forecasts -- have this spring been evaluating the use of even stronger warning language, with phrases like "mass devastation," "catastrophic," and "unsurvivable" being evaluated for use in warnings when needed.



(photo from City of Woodward)

Woodward will rebuild; it's a resilient community, and the city will recover, just like they did the last time. Even though I didn't live there all that long, I do think of Woodward as my hometown and I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help; I probably will not make it there until my 40th high school reunion in the fall. But I can write a check, so that's what I'll do. And if you want to, too, make it out to the Tornado Relief Fund.

Taking it to the Eggstreme

Morningside Presbyterian had their Easter egg hunt yesterday morning. There's a banner in front of the church, inviting the neighborhood to attend, and Lynsley forwarded the notice on Friday to our neighbors. Haygood is having theirs today after the 11 a.m. service, so neighborhood children who have not yet gotten sick on chocolate eggs and jelly beans have a second chance to do so today.

When I saw Lynsley's note, I was reminded of an NPR story I saw a week or two ago. When I saw the headline -- "Easter Egg Hunt Canceled due to Aggressive Parents" -- I thought it might be an early April Fool's story, but it wasn't. Last year, the Old Colorado City Association had sponsored an Easter egg hunt in a park in Colorado Springs. According to the NPR story,

Organizers of an annual Easter egg hunt in Colorado attended by hundreds of children have canceled this year's event, citing the behavior of aggressive parents who swarmed into the tiny park last year, determined that their kids get an egg. That hunt was over in seconds, to the consternation of egg-less tots and their own parents. Too many parents had jumped a rope set up to allow only children into Bancroft Park in a historic area of Colorado Springs.

Then yesterday here was a brief item in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution tthat the same thing happened in Macon. The headline in the newspaper was "Rowdy Parents prompt Macon to end egg hunt," but the headline in the online version was more alarming, "Macon Easter egg hunt cancelled after past violence." The event, in Central City Park in Macon, was cancelled because organizers said that "parents became violent while trying to collect eggs for themselves and their children in past years."

Bibb County Commissioner Joe Allen tells The Telegraph of Macon (http://bit.ly/HPI8OJ) that liability concerns led to the cancellation. Allen is founder and CEO of Kids Yule Love, which coordinated the event. Allen said he canceled this year's hunt because parents caused children to be hurt. He said that in past years, one woman was injured and several children were "trampled on."

I remember the egg hunts at Haygood, when our kids were little. There was a mix of bigger kids and littler kids, and some years the littler kids had their own area to search, or they got a head start. I don't remember seeing parents behaving badly, but I do remember some of the bigger children (relative to the smaller ones there -- they were all pretty small) going for all the eggs they could find and no one telling them to leave any for the smaller children. I also do understand as a parent not wanting your child to have an empty basket when the whole thing is over. I remember seeing, once at the Haygood egg hunt, a mother carrying a plastic grocery store bag with maybe a dozen plastic eggs in it; I saw her slip one surreptitiously into her child's basket during the hunt. She shouldn't have had to do that though; there is something wrong when parents don't retrieve their older children, once they've found their share of eggs, and to let the little ones find eggs too.

The organizer of the Colorado Springs hunt told NPR "the event has outgrown its original intent of being a neighborhood event." That's part of it, too; we behave better with people that we know, and at a large event in a city, we are surrounded by people we don't know. At a community egg hunt, the adults probably only know their own child, and don't feel any responsibility for the other children. We honk at the driver who doesn't move as soon as the the light turns green; would we do that if it was someone we knew? I do think the anonymity of urban life makes all of these tendencies toward bad behavior much worse.

I went by Morningside Presbyterian a few minutes after 11 yesterday morning. The egg hunting was mostly done, and the children and the parents all looked like they'd had a good time. There was a separate area for toddlers. Parents were taking pictures, and there was a man in a bunny suit. I asked him if I could take his picture and he replied by asking if he could take mine. I said sure, but he didn't have a camera; he did though still have a pink Easter egg he held up when he posed.





This morning I got up early and made hot cross buns, which Iain and I had before we went to the 7:30 a.m. service at Haygood. Afterwards, Easter breakfast with quiche and strawberries and orange juice, a herd of chocolate bunnies in a basket on the table. And gratitude that I live in a neighborhood that is still able to host Easter egg hunts.

Moving Day

Our neighbors Melinda and Aaron and their daughter Adele moved to Portland last weekend.  As I recall, Adele was just a baby when they moved here.  We passed along a favorite toy, a horse with wheels, to Adele in 2008.  Over the years, we've seen them at block parties and and admired their porch decorations (was it a witch with a tutu at Halloween?) and seen them at lemonade stands.  The Sunday before they left Lynsley hosted a going away party for Melinda.  There was good food and good company.  We're excited for them -- Aaron has a new job there -- and are sure they'll love Portland.

They've sold their house, and sometime soon we will have new neighbors.  Melinda told me she had told the couple who bought the house that the street is special, that there are block parties and they should get involved and get to know their neighbors.  She wasn't sure when they would be moving in, but we'll look forward to meeting them when they do.

There are many reasons why it's good to know your neighbors.  It makes it easy to find someone to feed your cat or your rabbit or your turtle or your fish when you're out of town.  They can pick up your mail and keep an eye on your house while you're gone, and call 911 if guys in an unmarked truck start carrying your stuff out of your house.  If your dog gets lost, it's more likely to make it home quickly.  If your party goes late and stays loud, neighbors that know you are more likely to look for earplugs and less likely to call the police than otherwise.  If there's an issue affecting the neighborhood, whether it's crime or school redistricting, it's easier to organize for some kind of collective action, which is more likely to be effective.  And, of course, when you move away, your neighbors might throw you a going away party.

And we hope Melinda and Aaron find a great new neighborhood in Portland, and we'll look forward to meeting our new neighbors. In the meantime, I guess we need to find a date for that spring block party.