Thursday, June 12, 2008

Safe in the City

This week has been one of those (many) times I'm glad I don't live in suburbia. Rain storms swept through northern New Jersey earlier this week. Over 250,000 people were left without power (meaning, no A/C, right in the midst of our first 96 degree heatwave of the summer). My sister's family lost power for about 36 hours ... school was cancelled, and she spent the day playing with the kids on a slip 'n' slide. Sounds like fun.

She sent along some pics of the damage in one of the neighborhoods where a bunch of trees were knocked down:


What a shame. Just last year, the township had planned on knocking down those very same trees because their roots were damaging the streets and sidewalks. My brother-in-law (a real "Dean in 2004" supporter [note: original post said "Dean in 2000"]) organized a community protest that saved most of the trees. Now, mother nature accomplished what the municipal authorities could not.
And we think the federal legislation can stop global climate change? Good luck.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's clarify a couple of facts:

Howard Dean did not run in 2000. he ran in 2004. My support of his candicacy has nothing to do with trees on my old street.

I did not organize the community the protest two years ago. A neighbor stuck a flier under our door and we met once with the town forester who agreed that most of the trees did not need to cut down. The trees enhanced the value of the property (both aesthetically and financially) so of course we want to save them.

Thus, my desire to save the trees had absolutely nothing to do with politics.

However, I guess there is the added benefit that you mentioned that I had not even thought about: those trees may help to reduce atmospheric carbon that may lead to global climate change.

Finally, all of us who lost our power on Tuesday night did not really have to suffer through the 96 degree heat wave without a/c because the storm itself ended the heat wave.

Unfortunately, we couldn't use the slipnslide since it was in the garage and we did have power to open the door.

I do not think anybody died or was seriously injured so things were safe. The city did lose 6 people to heat stroke the prior two days.

Anonymous said...

I guess that was kinda of harsh. sorry about that