Stormy weather: The Saga Begins

Tuesday night, we heard warnings of a huge windstorm coming our way. Wednesday morning, the power went out for a few seconds. I was up, getting ready for work. I reset my alarm clock. I took 5 steps, and the power went out again for a few seconds. I decided not to reset the clock, and just unplugged it. Wednesday night, I was setting the clock again in preparation for going to bed. The power went out. I sat there in the dark, alarm clock in hand, for about a minute before the power came back on. Luckily, it did not go out again that night.

Thursday night came the mother of all windstorms. Jen and I left work, in separate cars, at 5pm. The way I usually go home was blocked by a felled tree already. I turned around and was behind a Subaru Outback with a sizable branch jammed in the axle. I flashed my lights until the driver pulled over, then crawled under her car and pulled the branch out. Then it was back toward work to try route #2.

Jen had already taken route #2, and told me via cellphone that she was stuck in traffic. When I was halfway home via route #2, she called again and said the highway was closed, and she was turning around. I adjusted my path to route #3. The highway was open where this path got to it, so I called Jen and let her know that was open. We got home around 8pm. A mere three hours for what is usually a 40 minute trip.

We had dinner, got the boy a bath and into bed, and waited. The wind picked up speed constantly. At one point, I decided to set the clock on the stove so I could see what time it was. The power went out as soon as I finished, but came back on after a minute. I promised I would not attempt to set any more clocks.

A little after 11pm, the power went out. Not knowing how long it would last, I decided not to start up the generator yet. (A generator came with our house when we bought it, complete with a little enclosure built for it and a GenTran system for powering the house's circuits with it. When we bought the house, I found this odd. After last winter, I no longer found it odd at all.) We went to bed.

I laid awake in bed, for I had no fan running (I overheat when I sleep if I don't have my fan on, no matter how cold it is). My in-laws, who are staying at our place, were still awake because they keep graveyard shift hours. Jen and the boy were sound asleep. Sometime past midnight, there was a god-awful cracking sound that seemed to be a tree falling, followed by some tree crashing noises. I leapt out of bed, grabbed my flashlight and some shorts, and went out to check. As I came into the living room, my in-laws were coming upstairs with a flashlight. They thought it sounded like it was out front, so they checked there. Nothing out there, and the cars were fine. We looked out back, and couldn't see any missing trees or anything. Finally, my mother-in-law spotted something on the ground that looked like a large tree limb. We figured it was a big limb that fell from one of the many huge cedars in our yard. Nothing to worry about.

Around 2am, I fired up the generator so I could get some sleep, as well as my father-in-law, who can't sleep without his CPAP machine. I was worried I would wake my neighbors, as the generator is damn loud, but I fired it up and we went to sleep.

Daylight comes, and I wake up thinking the generator sounds really loud. I step out the door to check on it and realize it's just that other neighbors are starting up their generators, too. I went in the backyard to check on that limb. It wasn't a limb. It was a big, big tree in the yard of my neighbor to the right, that fell and landed in my yard. Actually, exploded in my yard. A nine or ten foot section of it is standing straight up in my yard, buried so deep I can't knock it over.

Half the people in the neighborhood were out walking their dogs or just strolling, checking out the damage. I went out and talked to neighbors. My neighbor to the right came out. "Hope I didn't wake you by starting the generator at 2am," I says.

"Are you kidding?" he says. "We were all laying awake downstairs, and couldn't sleep because of the howling wind. When you started up the generator, it drowned out the wind and wasn't so scary, so we were finally able to get to sleep."

That made me feel better.

The last three days has been almost non-stop running around to buy supplies (food, hardware to repair a kitchen sink leak, etc.) and gas for the generator. The nearest place with power (and therefore working gas stations) is Monroe, and they keep selling out of gas. The neighborhood is a warzone of felled trees and power lines. We have land-line phone service, but cell service is spotty. For the first couple days, we could only get through on 1 in 5 calls because we'd get "all circuits are busy". Our DSL is out, so no internet. But all in all, we're relatively comfortable thanks to the generator; 3am refill-and-restarts not withstanding.

Power's back on at work, so I'm here, working and writing up this post. Hope to have some pictures of the disaster area for you soon.

Mattbear out.