Skip to content
  • Friday, December 8, 2023
Myhome Franchise

Myhome Franchise

Good interior, nonpareil

  • Living Room Rurniture
  • News Home Improve
  • Renovation Costs
  • Bed Remodeling
  • Bathroom Ideas
  • Rooftop Ideas
  • About Us
    • Advertise Here
    • Contact Us
    • Privacy Policy
    • Sitemap
  • Home
  • Fire and Ice – Memphis magazine
Renovation Costs

Fire and Ice – Memphis magazine

March 8, 2022
Mario Swayne

If you have the good luck (or bad sense) to buy a house with some years in its bones, you realize quickly that your renovation budget — money you thought you might spend beautifying the place — needs to be sunk into repairs you’ll never even see. I speak from experience. In my family’s first year in our home, we suffered a house fire, electrical in origin, that displaced us for nearly four months. On our return, the house did, as it happens, look better — extensive smoke damage necessitated extensive painting — but was it safer? Well, only sort of.

The trouble with insurance-funded repairs is that their purpose is simply to “make whole” the status quo of the structure before the fire. The place where the fire originated (in the wall behind the dryer) is put together properly now, but the electrical risks in the rest of the house weren’t mitigated. Which is why, in a few weeks, we will be visited by a different electrician, whom we will pay handsomely to dissect each of our outlets and light switches, lessening the odds that our house will fry itself a second time.

I mention this because I see a connection to the condition of our fair city’s power grid. I doubt I need to remind a single reader that an ice storm hit Memphis in early February. The power outages began almost immediately, on Thursday, February 3rd, when ice began to accumulate on power lines and tree limbs. Not long after, we began hearing reports of transformers blowing, houses catching fire, pipes bursting.

The city has cleaned up the worst of the damage from February’s storm. What will we do to make sure our community doesn’t have to keep reliving those cold, dark days?

For Memphians of a certain vintage, flashbacks to Ice Storm ’94 took hold. What if this were as bad as that? When all was said and done, it turned out that Ice Storm ’22 was actually worse, at least in terms of total power outages. The latest count, as of this writing, is that 241,260 customers of Memphis Light, Gas & Water lost power at some point during the storm, some for only a day or two, and others for a week or more.

Friends reported that their homes were as cold as 38 degrees — inside. Those fortunate enough to have sufficient disposable income, or tolerant friends and family, decamped to hotels or guest bedrooms. But in a city as poor as Memphis, not everyone has the funds for a hotel room (and even if they did, plenty of hotels were booked solid). Not everyone has folks in their lives ready to invite them in from the cold. Even if a refuge were found, would the pets be welcomed? Most people I know wouldn’t leave their cats and dogs in a refrigerator-cold house.

Catastrophic storms have grown more frequent, a trend that will almost certainly continue over the course of our lives. Memphis is vulnerable to strong winds (see: Hurricane Elvis) and to damaging ice storms. (It was a year ago in February that the city issued a boil-water order following another winter storm.) Then there’s the matter of the New Madrid fault line. I do not possess the emotional equilibrium at the moment to devote much thought to that.

The fact is that if we don’t make (expensive, time-consuming, disruptive) changes to our power grid, we are inviting future storms to leave our city cold and dark. And outages are more than inconvenient: For younger and older and sicker people, they can be devastating. We need more than the patch jobs that follow big storms. We need to accept that the combination of above-ground power lines, majestic trees, and regular major storms is not working for our community.

I’m far from the first person to call for burying power lines in Memphis; this isn’t a novel idea. The work is estimated to cost somewhere between three and seven billion dollars — a staggeringly wide range. Meanwhile, the annual operating budget of the City of Memphis is less than one billion. Still, we need better evaluations of what the work will cost, and then we need to determine where to begin.

When my family’s house was on fire, our first mission was to stop the burning. But now that the immediate damage has been remedied, our focus has shifted to making sure we don’t have to relive the experience. The city has cleaned up the worst of the damage from February’s storm. What will we do to make sure our community doesn’t have to keep reliving those cold, dark days?

Anna Traverse Fogle

Anna Traverse Fogle is editor-in-chief of Memphis magazine and CEO of Contemporary Media. She was raised in Memphis, studied at Johns Hopkins and Harvard, and now lives in Midtown with her husband, part-time stepson, and devoted pack of pets.

Read more by Anna Traverse Fogle

March 1, 2022

8:00 AM

Tags: "Home Improvement Jill'S Dad, Al Home Improvement, D&L Home Improvements, Home Improvement Jill'S Mom, Home Improvement Karate, Home Improvement Karen, Home Improvement Kelly Barnes, Home Improvement Kid Death, Home Improvement Kid Died, Home Improvement Kids, Home Improvement Kit, Home Improvement Kitchen, Home Improvement License, Home Improvement Loan Calculator, Home Improvement Loan Interest Rates, Home Improvement Loan Rates, Home Improvement Loans For Bad Credit, Home Improvement Loans In Texas, Home Improvement Logo, Home Improvement Magazine, Home Improvement Market, Home Improvement Meaning, Home Improvement Memes, Home Improvement Mom, Home Improvement Mortgage, Home Improvement Movie, Home Improvement Mr Wilson, Home Improvement Near Me, J Home Improvement Bakersfield, J Home Improvement Bakersfield Ca 93308, J Home Improvement Bakersfield California, J Home Improvement Inc, J Moon Home Improvements, J&K Home Improvement, J&M Home Improvements, K Home Improvements, K Home Improvements Springfield Pa, K&M Home Improvements, K&S Home Improvements, L Pearce Home Improvements, L&J Home Improvements, L&Q Home Improvements, L&S Home Improvements, M&M Home Improvement, P&K Home Improvements, R&M Home Improvements, T&K Home Improvements, T&K Home Improvements Reviews, T&M Home Improvement

Post navigation

Jeremy Renner Is Making A Home Renovation Show Called Rennervations, This Is Not A Drill
MLB and Union Are Still Far Apart on Eve of Deadline
December 2023
M T W T F S S
 123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
« Nov    

Archives

Recent Posts

  • Understanding the Different Types of Roofing Services for Your Property
  • Choosing the Best Digital Marketing Agency
  • Book Marketing 101 – Enhance Your Publisher’s Efforts
  • 9 Reasons To Remodel Your Home
  • Don’t Move By Yourself, Hire Movers In Fayetteville

BL

Intellifluence Trusted Blogger

Tags

A Home Improvement Company Was Negotiating With A Homeowner A Home Improvement Loan A Home Improvement Store A Home Improvement Store Advertises 60 Al Home Improvement B&G Home Improvement B&M Home Improvements B&W Home Improvement B'S Home Improvement C&J Home Improvements C&M Home Improvement" C&V Home Improvement C Home Improvements Eric B Home Improvement Home Improvement Actor Dies Home Improvement Actors Home Improvement Actress Home Improvement Air Date Home Improvement Al Home Improvement Al Borland Home Improvement Apps Home Improvement Brothers Home Improvement Business Cards Home Improvement Center Home Improvement Characters Home Improvement Christmas Episodes Home Improvement Companies Home Improvement Contractor Home Improvement Contractor License Home Improvement Contractors Near Me Home Improvement Ideas Home Improvement Loan Calculator Home Improvement Loan Rates Home Improvement Loans Home Improvement Near Me Home Improvement Neighbor Home Improvement Outlet Home Improvement Shows Home Improvement Stores Home Improvement Stores Near Me Home Improvement Streaming Home Improvement Tv Show Is Home Improvement A Good Investment J&B Home Improvement R&C Home Improvement

Related Article

News Home Improve

Is Singapore Sustaining Itself?

December 3, 2023
Mario Swayne
News Home Improve

Master Bedroom Decorating Ideas

December 1, 2023
Mario Swayne
News Home Improve

Interior Design Ideas – Entrance Hall Design Tips

November 29, 2023
Mario Swayne
News Home Improve

Interior Design Tips and Tricks to Decorate the House

November 25, 2023
Mario Swayne
Copyright © 2023 Myhome Franchise
Theme by: Theme Horse
Proudly Powered by: WordPress

WhatsApp us