O'Connell's Way Out
🗣️ O'Connell tries to save face · Disaster response kicks into gear · More politicking · Much more!
Good afternoon, everyone. Day six of monitoring the situation on the ground in Nashville in a special Saturday newsletter.
Things That Never Happen But Should Join us Thursday, February 19th for an evening with Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of The Federalist. This is the third installment of the Pamphleteer's new monthly event series. Paying Bard-level subscribers receive free access to this and future events. (Buy Tickets)
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The politicking will continue until careers are saved.
From Davis Hunt
⚡️ Power Levels As of this writing, the NES power outage map shows 51,855 customers without power. That’s 20,684 fewer customers than yesterday. According to NES’s most recent update, there are now 1,278 lineworkers in the field.
Yesterday, NES finally held a press conference with some information on what to expect over the next week. The utility has produced an online portal where you can type in your address and view the status of your outage.
They also said they expect everyone to have power within two weeks, which is only comforting insofar it is a number contrasted with the vast web of uncertainty characterizing earlier communications.
Information on warming shelters and aid programs can be found here.
📅 A Little Too Late In addition to O’Connell’s lagging effort to put together a charitable fund to support those affected by the ice storm, public facing groups across the city and even the governor were also late to the party.
Thursday, the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp promoted discounted hotels for Nashville residents. The Predators addressed the storm for the first time yesterday and announced a temporary opening at Bridgestone Arena for charging devices, refilling water, and receiving a hot meal.
AirBnB jumped in the fray, offering discounted and free rooms for those affected by the storm. VRBO set up a Nashville specific page for reduced rates.
Friday afternoon at 3 p.m., the governor put out a strongly worded statement urging NES to communicate better and publish a “clear timeline for power restoration.” US Senator and gubernatorial candidate Marsha Blackburn sent her own letter yesterday demanding the same.
So, why did aid efforts from the city and state’s most prominent and powerful institutions and people come so late? To offer some rank speculation, from the outside, it appears as if O’Connell, in a last ditch effort to distance himself from NES and cultivate a political narrative that favors him, made some phone calls he should’ve made on Monday.
Notice that since Thursday, O’Connell has held solo press conferences without NES. At yesterday’s normal Friday media roundtable, he was present with Metro Water, MNPD, the Nashville Chamber of Commerce, NDOT, the OEM, and even reps from United Way. But the one entity responsible for restoring the power was absent.
O’Connell offered a cheap “Nashville is stronger together” paean to the gaggle of reporters, but it all lands hollow six days into a storm that he didn’t visibly take seriously until day five. Instead, he’s chosen to maroon a beleaguered NES and take what should’ve been a strong, unified response in spite of the negative press and turn it into a political spectacle.
Nashville, we deserve better leaders than this.
âśą THINGS THAT NEVER HAPPEN BUT SHOULD
​Welcome to America in 2026. You're sitting at the End of History. Nothing will ever happen again.
​The steady march toward the impossible vision of a borderless world governed by rooms full of perfectly rational leaders incapable of committing evil in thought word or deed continues apace.
​Will anything–can anything happen–that shakes us from our stupor? Is "Nothing Ever Happens" the law of the land? What should happen that hasn't happened?
​Join us Thursday, February 19th as we sit down with Sean Davis, CEO and co-founder of The Federalist, to discuss whether anything will ever happen again and more. (Buy Ticket)
This event is for the benefit of The Pamphleteer and free for paying, Bard-level subscribers.
🗣️ CMs Speak Out Six Metro council members signed a strongly worded letter calling for the “immediate release of the restoration timeline to all NES customers.”
CM Courtney Johnston, one of the signers, expressed frustration over the poor communication from NES. "The obvious lack of preparation for this well forecast storm is an epic display of ineptitude,” Johnston told us.
“I've spent every hour of each day begging for information to be able to pass along to people, even if it's bad news, so that they can make informed decisions about their safety. To say this is unacceptable is an understatement."
CM Jacob Kupin, another one of the signers, spoke to us as well, rejecting the narrative parroted by NES and other officials that this is an "unprecedented, historic event” which could not be anticipated.
“Respectfully, I push back and disagree with that,” he told us. “A plan for a response for a prolonged, city-wide blackout is something that I think would have been reasonable to have in our toolbox.”
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Today's newsletter is brought to you by Davis Hunt, Megan Podsiedlik, and Camelia Brennan.