Even though numerous eye witnesses said they spotted funnel clouds, there was a wait of several days. Finally … yes! … the weather service said it was official. At least five tornadoes reared their heads in North Texas the other day. Luckily, most of the damage was only flooding, as opposed to wholesale destruction.
So, I want to know just how they confirmed the tornadoes. Do the weather experts Tivo the video from weather satellites, then go back and review the call? And, BTW, “eye witness” is a funny term. Are their ear witnesses to really loud mishaps? I wonder if anyone has ever testified as a nose witness, in events that caused a stink??? …
I digress …
Suffice to say the tornadoes were real, and there is nothing like a bad storm to bring out the A word — aftermath.
Aftermath … it’s what I do. Ha … the Dallas storms gave me occasion to put on my dirty hat and do some more “dirty jobs” action to fund this blog.
Any time I start a dirty gig, there is a small transition time, in which I am still thinking Wi-Fi connectivity instead of power tools. It passes quickly — as I learn about air movers, “de-hues,” etc.
One day I was tooling around Dallas in a 24-foot diesel truck …
The ‘dirt’ on this job has been more like mud along with the potential for mold. There are several crews extracting flood water from apartments, office buildings, warehouses and even an esteemed business school. Funny, they all smell the same when soaked in sludge — the buildings, not the crews.
At the college, I took the opportunity to call a friend of mine who heads PR for the school to let him know I was “swimming” on campus, albeit, not in the Olympic-size aquatic facility. He got a kick out of that.
I won’t lie … I thought it was interesting to be ripping carpet out of a lecture room where I participated in a PR discussion, just a few months earlier. But we do what we do …
Could it be that I am de-evolving back to my blue-collar days — relearning skills which paid my way through college, and helped me earn my college degree … training me to become a writer? Or is this hard, physical work actually something that really matters more than spinning and fabricating good news about PR clients? Hmmmm?
Our crew made quick work of the classroom, and rushed off to a two-story office building.
I didn’t really look for Wi-Fi, but there were constant reminders on the job site. As I moved contents in flooded offices it seemed there was a Wi-Fi router around every corner. It seems LinkSys is everywhere.
I should have checked to see if the soaked equipment was still giving soggy signal …
Elsewhere in one flooded office building, surprisingly, it was business as usual. Just a few door down from where demolition crews were knocking out walls, removing caved-in ceiling, and draining water … HA … there was a sales training/motivational seminar going on … on a Saturday morning. I could hear ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ blaring from a boombox behind the door. LOL … sales associates were yelling and clapping.
… Must have been quite a motivational speaker to get people fired up, as the building was crumbling around them, just down the hall.
The only tall tale I have from the apartment complex is that we transported one person’s belonging from a damaged apartment on the first floor, to a pristine place on the third floor … in the 100-degree heat. But of course, there was a story waiting up there too. When the job was finished, the two women started offering gratituity “we couldn’t refuse.” Ha … but we declined … seriously.
A few days later there was another one of those “small world” occurrences. I was asked to drive a truck to a flooded building in Dallas. It just happened to be a well-known night club and medium-size venue concert hall. We unloaded the equipment and walked around the place, reading all of the cool concert posters on the walls, backstage.
There was a small white couch tucked in one corner. It was the very couch where I sat a few months back, side-by-side with Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, for a one-on-one interview. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. It is featured on this blog and on YouTube.
How coincidental is that?
Know what I sayin?
