The weather man had warned us that strong winds were coming our way. Batten down the hatches, they said. Boy, did we not realize that they meant hurricane force winds! Wednesday night the fun began! The neighboring town had 102 mph winds reported; ours were reported over 90 mph. By Thursday morning at 6 A.M. the power was out. When we woke up cold and in the dark, we had no clue that part of the reason was that thousands of trees across the south end of our county had blown down some toppling power lines. A house a block up from us had a tree hit the transformer, then land on their house instantly engulfing the whole thing. Throughout the day more and more trees blew down, some on houses, cars, fences. Almost everyone lost something whether it was shingles, garbage cans, swamp coolers, welcome mats, Christmas decorations (for once my procrastination paid off!)
I personally lost my sanity! I realized how clueless my children were about their daily lives. Every time someone opened their mouth to ask for something such as the TV, music, a movie, computer games, Netflix, popcorn, etc., I would say “No power!” I plugged in a wall phone that I had keep just for these type of emergencies and my children were shocked! “What is that?” I demonstrated its use by calling to see if anyone else had heard if school was out or not. Bubba wanted to try it and after dialing the number he asked if he pressed ‘Flash’ or something to make the call go through…”No…the phone just dials.” Amazing!
Even with the propane tent space heater the house was a chilly 58 degrees at bedtime. We pulled out two of the kid’s mattresses, lots of blankets, and pillows. The two oldest kids slept on the couches, Ethan and LouLou slept on the mattresses and me…I slept in the middle of the two mattresses. Ah, delightful night sleep! I was awakened at 1:30 A.M. to the overhead lights turning back on and the furnace re-starting! Yeah! Last night we were able to all go our separate directions…ah, bliss!
After spending Thursday, Friday and Saturday cleaning up our house and helping our neighbors and friends,the National Weather Service has announced that today (Sunday) another windstorm with snow this time is headed our way tonight. Our church has been cancelled, the dump re-opened and all able bodied people are asked to clear away all the debris that had been piled on the side of the streets so that it won't become flying projectiles. Gotta run, wish us luck...