We survived. The post below this one is meaningless, except that it tells me exactly what I was doing when the light went out. We lost power at about 1:00 Monday and were out until 6:45 tonight. For those of you keeping track, that's 5 days, 5 hours, and 45 minutes.
Our house survived. Our friend Lenora got a tree through her carport (and on top of her car) so she's living here with us for awhile until her house is livable again. I'll post pics of her house soon and I'll put a link up.
We're on our third load of laundry, we've bleached out the fridge and the freezer, changed all the sheets on all the beds, vacuumed the carpets and swept the floors.
I think I've got a crying spell coming, but I'm not sure when it'll hit. But I plan to enjoy every single second of it.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
11:23 and all is well.
Windy and rainy, but well. Still have power and internet, as you can tell by the fact that you're reading this post. If you're not reading it, that confirms that we lost power sometime between 11:23 and whenever I hit the "Publish Post" button.
E's still watching I Love Lucy, but they're repeating episodes now. What's with that? It's only been about 3 hours.
Is it weird to hope that the power will go out sooner rather than later? I'd really prefer it not go out at all, but living with it minute to minute knowing it's going out is a little crazy-making. I'm bookmarking every webpage I view, just in case I lose it when the power goes out. I'm turning off lights in the bedrooms just in case the power goes out (so if it gets restored during the middle of the night it won't wake us up). I'm rushing Elizabeth through her cookie making just in case the power goes out.
Weather Underground has revised our projected winds to peak around 50, rather than the 60 it was a couple of hours ago.
E's still watching I Love Lucy, but they're repeating episodes now. What's with that? It's only been about 3 hours.
Is it weird to hope that the power will go out sooner rather than later? I'd really prefer it not go out at all, but living with it minute to minute knowing it's going out is a little crazy-making. I'm bookmarking every webpage I view, just in case I lose it when the power goes out. I'm turning off lights in the bedrooms just in case the power goes out (so if it gets restored during the middle of the night it won't wake us up). I'm rushing Elizabeth through her cookie making just in case the power goes out.
Weather Underground has revised our projected winds to peak around 50, rather than the 60 it was a couple of hours ago.
Monday 9:36 AM ...
... and much to our surprise, we still have power and internet.
Jeaux made it in to work with no problems, and Elizabeth came and piled up in the bed with me. He said it was breezy, but not too bad. I hope he'll be able to make it home tonight, but if not, we're prepared. It's not as scary for me when the storm comes through in daylight, and by tonight things will be slowing down. We've got about a million flashlights and battery lanterns in the house and we have reading materials coming out the wazoo. And my friend Lenora bought us four new board games.
After dark last night he convinced me to let him board up a couple more windows, so my computer room is VERY dark right now. Elizabeth is playing Hostess, baking cookies so we'll have something to serve our guests tomorrow when the lights are out and several friends have planned to come over here to play games. Our Children's Director at church threw down a gauntlet yesterday by making it known that no one will play Trivial Pursuit with her anymore because she always wins. It's going to be a fun (although probably hot) day.
All four local channels, CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, and Fox are all doing 24/7 hurricane coverage, so E and I finally put it on TVLand and she's fallen in love with I Love Lucy reruns. After all, we have 24/7 hurricane coverage out every single window of the house.
Jeaux made it in to work with no problems, and Elizabeth came and piled up in the bed with me. He said it was breezy, but not too bad. I hope he'll be able to make it home tonight, but if not, we're prepared. It's not as scary for me when the storm comes through in daylight, and by tonight things will be slowing down. We've got about a million flashlights and battery lanterns in the house and we have reading materials coming out the wazoo. And my friend Lenora bought us four new board games.
After dark last night he convinced me to let him board up a couple more windows, so my computer room is VERY dark right now. Elizabeth is playing Hostess, baking cookies so we'll have something to serve our guests tomorrow when the lights are out and several friends have planned to come over here to play games. Our Children's Director at church threw down a gauntlet yesterday by making it known that no one will play Trivial Pursuit with her anymore because she always wins. It's going to be a fun (although probably hot) day.
All four local channels, CNN, CNN Headline News, MSNBC, and Fox are all doing 24/7 hurricane coverage, so E and I finally put it on TVLand and she's fallen in love with I Love Lucy reruns. After all, we have 24/7 hurricane coverage out every single window of the house.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
The Latest
It's 10 PM Sunday night and I'm about to shut it down and try to sleep. According to Weather Underground, landfall has been moved up a few hours. Ironically, that's good news. It means that the storm will have less time to build up a storm surge. The storm surge actually causes more damage than the wind in many cases.
We're too far north to have to worry about storm surge. Most of our forecasts are still predicting that the highest winds we can expect here in this area of the parish will be 50-65 miles/hour. Pretty scary to experience, but not generally causing widespread damage.
The recovery concerns me now. Churches have been sending folks to Louisiana for three years, and now there's going to be so much more work to be done. This storm will cause a lot of damage in both the Katrina zone and the Rita zone. This actually has the potential to be worse than Katrina in terms of wind, rain and flooding. Fortunately, we learned from Katrina, and New Orleans has been evacuated, except for law enforcement, OEP personnel, government officials, and first responders. And, of course, the homeless. The ones who are too mentally ill to make good decisions for themselves.
They're letting people bring their pets when they evacuate this time. Too many people refused to leave because their cats and dogs couldn't come with them. It's easy for me to say how dumb I think that is because I have a child and I can't imagine putting her in danger for a cat. I remember a time, though, when my cat Charlie was my child, and I'm not sure I could have left him. I'm glad they're respecting those relationships and letting people bring their animals with them.
We're too far north to have to worry about storm surge. Most of our forecasts are still predicting that the highest winds we can expect here in this area of the parish will be 50-65 miles/hour. Pretty scary to experience, but not generally causing widespread damage.
The recovery concerns me now. Churches have been sending folks to Louisiana for three years, and now there's going to be so much more work to be done. This storm will cause a lot of damage in both the Katrina zone and the Rita zone. This actually has the potential to be worse than Katrina in terms of wind, rain and flooding. Fortunately, we learned from Katrina, and New Orleans has been evacuated, except for law enforcement, OEP personnel, government officials, and first responders. And, of course, the homeless. The ones who are too mentally ill to make good decisions for themselves.
They're letting people bring their pets when they evacuate this time. Too many people refused to leave because their cats and dogs couldn't come with them. It's easy for me to say how dumb I think that is because I have a child and I can't imagine putting her in danger for a cat. I remember a time, though, when my cat Charlie was my child, and I'm not sure I could have left him. I'm glad they're respecting those relationships and letting people bring their animals with them.
What We Can Expect
It looks now like our winds will peak at 7PM tomorrow at nearly 60 mph. This chart is based on Weather Underground's Baton Rouge forecast. My biggest concern is that Jeaux may be driving home sometime after 3 on Monday. I've told him that if he can't get out by 3:30, I'd prefer that he stay there at the hospital for the night. If he makes it home, the winds during his drive in will be around 20. As long as he allows for extra time for closed roads, that drive will be safe.
He cut portholes in the plywood for me. He knows how claustrophobic I get with all the natural light blocked.
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