Sunday, September 2, 2012.
The Entergy Massacree. Should Have Had The Chicken.
I had just started the lawnmower--the usual battle--when Mary Ann came out and said, "Did you forget you have a radio show in ten minutes?" By gosh, I did.
Diane Newman asked me to stay with the storm-aftermath theme on the WWL show. The phones were loaded with people, many (but far from most) wanting to take a shot at Entergy for not having the electrical power turned back on. Since Entergy got to work Wednesday night, it reconnected somewhere between two-thirds and three-fourths of the nearly half-million deprived customers. That statistic was less than meaningful to anybody whose power was still off.
I came up with a phrase to explain this: "Somebody has to be the last one connected, even in a completely fair system." That makes perfect sense to me, but it's a head answer, not a heart answer. Mary Ann came into my room to tell me I sounded unsympathetic. On the other hand, most of the callers seem to think it reasonable. But all of those (I asked) had their power back on. (Such people also had an advantage in just making the call.)
Three hours later, my hurricane duty on the Official Hurricane Emergency Station (that is no mere slogan, but a Federally-sanctioned role for WWL Radio) ended. Back to the grass. I got it all cut just in time to feel the first few raindrops of a brief shower. Incredibly, Hurricane Isaac still has an identifiable center of circulation in Illinois, and a tendril of warm, moist air with intense thunderstorms embedded in it stretches all the way up there from the Gulf. This SOB just won't die! The Zombie Hurricane!
Dinner at Zea. Salads. Red beans for MA, the filet mignon for me. What I really wanted (so why didn't I get it?) was the barbecue chicken half. As if to drive home my lack of judiciousness, the people at the next table got the chicken. It looked fantastic. I will eat that next time I go to Zea.
