As a lifelong Memphian, usually I'm happy to see my city make national news.
If it's the Tigers advancing far in the NCAA tournament, a candlelight vigil at Graceland or a heavyweight championship fight of the century -- I loved seeing Memphis on television receiving national recognition in my almost 22 years of life.
Recently, the M-Town made news for enduring a natural disaster -- not the way I like to see the city make the news.
Last Tuesday at 6:30 a.m., Memphis was slammed by straight-line winds causing almost $40 million in damages, leaving over 300,000 customers without power and leading to seven deaths so far.
The storm gave Memphis a segment on CNN news. Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen toured the city via helicopter last week and Memphis requested disaster assistant from President Bush.
The storm left Memphis "all shook up." Memphis Light Gas and Water (MLG&W) has worked around the clock trying to get the Bluff City off the ropes.
While MLG&W worked to reduce the number of customers without power to fewer than 100,000, some Memphians have taken the opportunity to work together to restore their neighborhoods.
One of the hardest hit areas was Midtown. Bumper stickers read "Midtown is Memphis," and if that is true, Memphis has a black eye right about now.
Taking a drive through Midtown is almost as bad as driving through Memphis construction. It's like a game of tag trying to avoid downed trees in the road, kids playing outside to evade the heat of indoors and orange cones meant to secure the workers cleaning up.
But if you stop long enough, in perhaps what is the most diverse area in the city, you can see a single white college-aged female, a black family and a gay couple trying to remove a HUGE tree out of their apartment complex parking area.
The gay couple started the work on their tree, then neighbors joined in. The black family brought soul food while the college-aged woman offered refreshments in the form of beer as everybody worked on removing the tree.
The storm has given many people a chance to come together and get to know each other. Besides just saying hello to the person living right next door -- due to the storm people had to depend on a neighbor to keep their food fresh, charge up cell phones or for a cool place to sleep.
But not all is well in "Stormville." With the combination of 90 degree temperatures and the uncertainty of when power is going to return, some Memphians have been ready to go to war.
People have argued for a place in line while buying ice at a grocery store. People left in the dark feared being robbed, and some neighborhoods like in Orange Mound have the aroma of rotten meat flowing through the streets.
Although my family's house never smelled, one day while we were living without power for six days, my baby brother Carlos woke up to a surprise.
Dazed and confused from just waking up, he went into the kitchen for an early morning snack.
Barely seeing, my brother thought he had just walked over some leftover Chinese rice somebody spilled in the dark.
What he really saw and felt under his feet were maggots coming from our freezer. The ice melted and gave flies the perfect place to lay eggs. We all got up to clean the kitchen and sweep out all the maggots.
Experiences like those have brought my family closer together during a difficult period.
I hope the rest of Memphis is getting to know their neighbors and providing a helping hand to those in need.
Maybe this is a Higher Power's way of bringing Memphis together and giving us a unique early morning wake-up call.
My fellow Memphians, let's rebuild and learn from this lesson -- it could have been much worse. And one day the city will be prepared to make more national news again -- hopefully in positive ways.
