When the Chainsaw Breaks

By BARRY FRIEDMAN

Early morning on Father’s Day, a storm hit Oklahoma with 100 mph winds, rain, wind, hail, and for all I know locusts and frogs. More than 200,000 Oklahomans, mostly in Tulsa (my hometown), were without power. As the week progressed, temperatures hit the century mark; wifi, cell data were spotty at best; and power lines holding up trees looked like hammocks about to collapse.

Republican Governor Kevin Stitt was in Paris at an air show (insert Ted Cruz/Cancun joke here) and Republican Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnell was in Georgia at Republican lieutenant governors’ retreat (insert your own joke), which was important because one of the them physically needed to be in Oklahoma to declare a state of emergency. Republican Senate Pro Tempore Greg Treat, next in line in succession, could have declared the emergency, but inexplicably neither Stitt nor Pinnell mentioned they’d be gone.

It wasn’t until the Tuesday after the storm that Treat said his chief of staff got a call from Stitt’s chief of staff to declare the emergency. Treat never heard from Stitt directly.

I know a guy who owns a bagel shop who always remembers to tell his workers when he runs out to pick up cream cheese or heads to the bank.

Republican Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who loves rhetorically smacking the governor around in public — in part because he wants to succeed Stitt, in part because it’s so easy and necessary — couldn’t believe how inept this all was.

“There is no requirement for the Governor to notify the Lieutenant Governor when traveling out of the state. There is similarly not a requirement for the Lieutenant Governor to notify the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, or on down the line of succession. We have seen the unnecessary delay and confusion this creates, all at the expense of Oklahomans struggling to cope with emergency circumstances.”

Lovely.

Treat subsequently said communication probably could be improved.

Ya think?

Traffic lights were dark. Fuse cutouts, which protect transformers, were hanging precariously from poles throughout town, and convenience stores were closed, so there was no filling up — so much for the snark about the advantages of Ford-150s over Nissan Leafs when there’s no electricity.

In front of my house, a large tree lay bifurcated the street.

My next door neighbors texted to say one of their trees came down. It kicked a hole in their attic and smashed a section of their newly installed guttering.

Somehow it missed their neighbor’s car.

They have a tree guy in the family.

We should all have a tree guy in the family.

Another neighbor, whom I had never met, said the city would pick up the big tree in the street, so we both decided to bring the branches from our respective houses and pile them on top of it. Others on the block soon did, as well. It was where people on Florence Avenue, where I live, who heretofore didn’t know each other, met. It was our own Burning Man, and it was there at the fallen tree, we dumped limbs and branches and then smiled and nodded.

The tree guy came by in a truck with Joe, who, as it turns out, owns that bagel shop. I don’t know Joe’s politics entirely, but I know he’s to the right of me. I don’t know how he and my neighbors know each other, or, for that matter, how he and the Tree Guy do, but together they started cutting up the behemoth in the neighbors’ yard. Gregory, my stepson, and I helped them haul its remnants to the curb. Some guy with a wood chipper would be by — or maybe Tree Guy would be back with one. Tree guys have such things. The chain saw chain came off, so while Tree Guy tried reattaching it, Joe took a large handsaw and headed to my backyard and finished cutting up the large branches. As we hauled them down my driveway to the big pile in the street, I said, “Joe, you didn’t have to do this — the neighbors, me — being here. You don’t even live in this neighborhood. It’s really wonderful. Thank you.”

“Nah, it’s nothing. It’s how we do community, right?”

Right.

For many in Tulsa — for me, personally — power was out about a week.

When it was clear how devastating this storm was, many governors would have immediately returned to their states, but Governor Stitt, who was schedule to return to Oklahoma from France on Wednesday … returned on Wednesday.

He said his absence had no effect on the state’s emergency response.

And Paris is beautiful this time of year, n’est-ce pas?

Stop signs were soon put up at intersections where the lights had gone dark and drivers observed a protocol about how traffic should flow: they took turns.

If you arrived first, you went; if you didn’t, you waited.

It worked.

We took turns. Drivers heading east and west, drivers heading north and south, drivers turning right and left — like clockwork.

Mainstream Republicans, conservative Democrats, those who think Trump was ordained by Jesus, those who believe Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a vaccine prophet, those who will still support Stitt took turns — and they did so, for the most part, peacefully. Even those in the turn lanes, those who have the longest wait while the lights are working, got their chance in the rhythm and rotation of this new traffic paradigm. They weren’t begrudged. America was doing 4-Way Stops. It’s a cliche — the “We’re all in this together” trope — but when the storms come, it’s the only way we get through them.

Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter — quit laughing — and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. His latest book is “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman.” In addition, he is the author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.

From The Progressive Populist, August 1, 2023

Populist.com