The Hurricane

Things are regaining a sense of normalcy around here. The hurricane sort of disrupted things around here just a wee bit. To be honest, weathermen are always hyping up storms around here and we didn't really think it would be as bad as they had warned. In addition, people in this area are prone to run to the store at the mere mention of a snow flake and clear the shelves of bread, eggs and milk. I didn't even know there was a storm coming til my neighbor told me on the Friday before. Note to self: pay attention to the news occasionally. Although we were not too worried about the storm, we did take our window air conditioner units out. On Sunday, I spent a few extra hours in the kitchen making some food, figuring we might be out of power for a day or two. I got caught up on my laundry, which only happens once every 4 years, or when my friend Erin visits. Monday rolled around and it was basically like a regular rainstorm, minus the heavy rain. It just drizzled most of the day with a little wind here and there. I think we all started to think that it had, indeed, been hyped up. However, evening rolled around and the winds were whipping like crazy. The power flickered for a while before going out. We put Katie downstairs in the boys' room. The neighbor has two enormous trees that were swaying in the wind, which of course was blowing in our direction. James was scared to go to sleep, but it didn't take him long. Tyler was oblivious and conked out right away. Katie couldn't sleep because she was scared. It took her a long time to go to sleep. Jeff and I couldn't really sleep, sitting there listening to the wind howl against the house and knowing that it was strong enough to cause damage. We just sat there on the couch in front of our huge front window and watched. The sky kept lighting up green and pink for hours. It was power flashes from power lines coming down. After a while we kept hearing sounds on our house, and Jeff thought shingles were flying off. Then he figured out that it was our siding. There was a long swath of it coming loose upstairs. He was afraid it was going to fly off and so climbed out the upstairs window to try and secure it. Let's just say that was one of the more tense moments for me watching him scoot his way down the roof with cordless drill in hand to try and fix it. He described it as 'intense' which is strong wording for Jeff. He did keep the siding from coming off but we will have to fix it soon. There are a ton of trees in our town and we sat for a while longer and watched them sway. Finally my nerves had enough and I went to bed, and Jeff followed not long after. When we woke up, there were lots of branches and leaves everywhere. So many trees in our area where knocked over. Part of our neighbor's tree fell on the power pole and snapped it off. The top of the pole spun around, twisting up the wires over our yard. The neighbor across the street lost at least three big trees on his property. On of them fell on his shed, causing little damage, before it rolled off and fell on his truck, causing a lot of damage. Another neighbor has a huge oak tree in their backyard, and the tree split right down the middle and is now hanging dangerously over the power lines. The crack has been growing since the storm, and he finally got the power company to come out and take it down. The tree is so unstable, they have a HUGE cherry picker-type thing and they are up there taking down one small section of branch at a time...in this snowy, icy slush we are getting. I bet they love their job right now. The good news with that is hopefully we will avoid another power outage had that tree fallen on the lines. We ended up being out of power for 6 days, and the phone/internet was restored yesterday after 8 days. The old phone cable is still hanging in our yard, just waiting for Tyler to pull a Tarzan on. More tomorrow...