So I survived another hurricane. Not fun. The day of, Scott and I both worked, but we knew it wasn't going to get bad until that night. I was nervous to be at home for the 12-ish hour storm because we live under so many trees, but my boss man was like feel free to go to the office if you don't feel safe. He didn't have to ask me twice. I literally begged my family to join me. It was not ideal, but at least the building itself was secure. But no. They made me tear up from worrying. I packed a bag of drinks, snacks, 2 pillows, and a blanket, and off we went. The night wasn't so bad, but around 4am it got pretty hairy. I have another video of me actually out in it like a weather reporter, but the language isn't very PG. Neither one of us slept, so by the time it started to die down, we laid on the floor. Of the classroom, LOL. After thumbing through the weather channel, and asking folks back home were the roads clear, off we went. I didn't take too many pics, I was driving, traffic was horrific, and trees and power lines were down everywhere. This is when we knew that it was going to be a day or two before we got power. It ended up being 8 days total, but we had no idea at this time. So we get home, thankfully no major damage, the house is hot as expected. We get a heat advisory alert on our phones! Seriously Mother Nature! No power, and you're gonna hit us with triple digit temperatures! Scott and I spent a lot of time on the porch. The neighbors saw a lot of our flesh. Before Laura, if I had to go to my car or check the mail and I was wearing shorts, I would either wait until it got dark or change into pants because of my white scarred up legs. AND, not even Scott got to see me in a sleeveless shirt. Yeah......flesh was seen. The first night I tried to sleep in the house, but with zero air moving, around 3am I got in my car. I had a nice pattern for 7 nights. I would crank the car, set a timer for 30 min. I would wake up, kill the car, and when I would naturally wake up because I was sweating or couldn't breathe, I would crank the car, and set another timer. The second night, Scott set up the tent. I did try to stay all night but this was the night I did not sleep at all. It was so hot and humid, there were owls, dogs, everything smelled of dog poop, and I had to put on shoes to go inside to the bathroom. I ended up back in the car. The tent though, was nice. Very spacious. We put two queen sized mattresses, a cooler, and there was room for more. Since I was awake at 5:00am, I figured I may as well go inside before the sun would rise, and try to organize the house. When I got the text from SWEPCO that it would be 7 days before the power was back on, that killed all morale. I did try to sleep in the tent one more time, but it was more humid and sticky than the previous night. Apparently I was the only one having trouble sleeping. I, however, have become quite accustomed to the car. With us spending so much time on the porch with the heat warnings, I hung an old COMFORTER to block out the sun. I have since bought a bamboo shade/privacy screen, but for 7 days, this is what the neighbors had to see. Callie was confused as to what all was going on. She stayed right under our feet. When parts of Natchitoches regained power, the lines for gas were miles and hours long. Luckily we both filled up the night of the hurricane. We drove around a lot. One, soaking in the ac from the car/truck and two, looking at all of the damage. You can clearly tell the pictures that I took from a moving car, and the ones that someone took standing still from an actual camera. Many lineman have stated that in all of the years that they have been doing this job, this is the worst damage that they have seen to the lines/poles. When I started back to work, I saw so many houses with roof damage, missing carports, crushed back porches, endless miles of tarps temporarily serving as shelter. In Gorum, I saw two houses completely demolished. We were so incredibly blessed, not only because we had very little damage, we were blessed in neighbors, family, and friends. My neighbors offered us utilities, they brought us food, friends offered lodging, generators, gas cans, the outpouring of love was overwhelming. It became the norm for nighttime to come, and Scott and I say our love you/goodnights, and he go to the tent and I get in the car. I learned on night 3 to take melatonin. There were many trips trying to find ice. Incredibly grateful to all of the local businesses in our area that provided free ice, water, and food. I don't know why I was so worried about ice, and then I would flip out when it melted. When it hit me that we didn't actually NEED ice, my blood pressure went down. All of the fridge/freezer food had to be thrown out. And OMG, let's not talk about the chicken sludge I had to clean up out of the top freezer. All the food in the deep freezer survived. We had many fancy meals like this on the porch. Did I mention that we ran out of water? Let me tell you that when it came back on, I took the longest coldest shower of my life. I didn't even care that I had to wrap up my hair in a tshirt because we had no clean towels. So we pretty much just sat around in the sweltering heat, drove around, and ate junk food. I don't think that I have ever witnessed Scott do yard work. These lovely ladies were going around taking families water and food. Slowly but surely everyone started the get power back. On the original day that SWEPCO said that it would be restored, they backed it up 3 more days. I kind of had a meltdown. With so many offering to help, and my stubborn self kept saying "thank you!!" but yet not accepting their offer, my lovely friend was like "dude, I am bringing you a generator tonight, go get gas". So I did. We were able to run two fans, plug up the freezer, and most importantly, my ice maker. We have an a/c window unit, but I was afraid to plug it in, I didn't want to overwhelm the generator. Yeah....I plugged it in the next night. When I woke up I had an epiphany: When my sister got power, I loaded up all of my dirty drawers and towels and headed to her house. And then.....I got the call. The power was back on. I just started throwing clothes into baskets, "Love ya'll, see you later!!" When I got home and saw my porch light on, I wanted to cry. I went inside and every light was turned on. So beautiful. Slowly but surely life is going back to normal. There is still a lot of damage to be repaired in several nearby Parishes, but the community is strong. I would rather not do this again for a very long time. I'll say it again, we were very blessed to not have major damage, and I will never forget the love and compassion from so many.
1 Comment
10/29/2020 04:37:53 am
Seems a long time ago now! But reading this brings back the memories, as we did many of these things :)
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Lisa DoddI enjoy sports, binge watching TV, food, reading, and slightly bearded men. Most popular blog posts from my previous Blog:
How I Died (Again) Lily is Here! The "Miracle" Diet Zesty Lemon Shrimp My Apologies to Shelby County, AL The Evolution of My Hair My Night Stalking Dale Murphy The Worst Late Night Snack Ever Questions from God Louisiana! Archives
December 2023
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