Storm Diary V
It seems I begin each diary with something I should have mentioned in the previous one. Like so:
For the most part, I was not worried about the food I was losing to the power outage. Having seen the devastation all around me, I rather felt profoundly fortunate and grateful for everything I still had. Spoiled food? Eh. Small potatoes. Truly. But there was one thing that concerned me, and that was Cora's medicine.
One of Cora's medicines is an injectable that has to be kept refrigerated. It's a quality-of-life med, not a life-and-death med, so I felt that it was okay for her to not have it regularly while the power was out and we were limiting the times we opened/closed the refrigerator, but when I cleaned out my fridge on Friday, I had no place to put it that I felt confident about. And this is a Very. Expensive. Medication. This is not something where replacing a month's supply will cost me $30.
So when Sean went to work on Friday, I sent what we had with him. He was going to put it in one of the refrigerators on campus for safekeeping, until we got our power back. It was not an ideal situation; I don't like leaving Cora's medicine in an unsecured fridge, but sometimes the best you can do is the best you can do.
As Sean was heading in to town, he got a text message from a former student in Decatur, the town about 30 minutes south of Athens on the other side of the Tennessee River, which had been without power since the storm mangled the TVA lines. On Friday morning, some parts of Decatur got their power back. I heard from Phil S. when I spoke to him on Friday evening that this was because some bright soul at TVA remembered that when they put in the new distribution lines, lo these many years ago, they didn't take the old lines out; they left them in place. So, said this bright unnamed soul, if we could get THOSE lines up and running, we could get some power to some people really quickly. And it worked; by Friday morning, part of Decatur was running on old distribution lines. They didn't know how long it would last -- and in fact, I heard later that it didn't last the day; the old lines gave out in the end -- but that morning, some of Decatur had power, and at the very least this eased the gasoline-and-restaurant-traffic situation in Athens enough that Sean and Ashley Rose were able to get gasoline. Dear bright unnamed soul: you did a good deed, even if it didn't last. It was very helpful while it did.
Anyway, that morning one of Sean's former students texted him that Decatur had power, and Sean texted back "Hey, in that case, can you put something in your fridge for me?" So Jamie, the former student, came and met Sean and Ashley Rose in Athens and took Cora's medicine to keep in his fridge. Thanks, Jamie, for going out of your way for us! I am glad Cora's medicine was secure with you rather than in a community refrigerator.
On Saturday morning, Sean went in to work again. Finals week, natch. The girls and I stayed behind, this time. I intended to finish cleaning out my kitchen freezer and perhaps my garage freezer. But I had a computer and a 3G internet connection through my phone -- the cell phone service had been steadily improving, and by Saturday morning was almost normal again -- and I spent some time that morning looking for news.
What I found was lots and lots of coverage of William and Kate's wedding, plus a few stories about the Tuscaloosa tornado. Nary a mention in the national news of any other tornadoes or damage anywhere else in Alabama, except in very broad general terms ("the most recorded tornadoes in any 48-hour period," and other general statements like that, glossing over the very real, very broad damage here. Yes, it was an impressive number of tornadoes. Would you like to come see our very impressive tornado damage, and talk to some of our impressively damaged survivors? No? Well, we're real sorry we didn't put a camera on that big nasty EF-Fiver for ya. We'll try to do better next time.). That really, really peeved me. It continues to peeve me. I guess if you're going to have some sort of disaster, you'd better get it on video, or else you're going to be completely IGNORED by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX News, and all of the rest of the national press. Tuscaloosa was ONE TORNADO, folks. North Alabama was hit by TWENTY MORE, and the one that went by us was an EF5 -- the most powerful tornado. There hasn't been an EF5 tornado in YEARS, and it killed probably about as many people as the Tuscaloosa twister (maybe more; hard figures are scarce yet), but I guess without video to put on the news, you don't get visits from the President and Charlie Sheen (Charlie Sheen? Srsly? Okay, maybe we caught a lucky break on that one). I spent some time finding and posting what coverage I could find -- the best coverage was from the Decatur Daily website -- just because I thought people ought to have SOME idea what had happened here.
Information about Limestone County utilities was also very hard to come by. I didn't find any. I know I heard people here in the county complaining as early as Thursday that Athens City was behaving as if nothing was really wrong, business as usual here, like the rest of us outside city limits somehow didn't even exist, and yeah, we did feel a bit neglected out here. Not in terms of assistance for those who were hit -- I don't think that was lacking -- or effort on the part of the utility company crews, who have been out working night and day, but on the part of the county leadership as far as getting information out, and making accomodations. The athletic association was trying to hold baseball games on Thursday night -- what? I'm not sure Athens City Schools were ever closed. Nevermind that some of their employees might have had storm damage to clean up. Report to work as normal! For the most part I have seen the very best of humanity throughout this ordeal, but my two complaints would be the stone cold shoulder the national news gave North Alabama (eta: for what SHOULD have happened, compare the coverage north Alabama didn't get with the coverage Joplin, MO is STILL getting - in fact, I've read more than one article about Joplin that erroneously talked about the 'other' EF-5 tornado, the one that hit Tuscaloosa, AL on April 27; actually, Tuscaloosa's was an EF-4. The other EF-5 hit NORTH ALABAMA, went 132 miles on the ground, was as wide as a mile and a quarter and killed 90 people, but the press remain collectively clueless about what happened here. They were too busy oohing over some ridiculously rich English woman's wedding gown to pay any attention when it happened, and now they'll NEVER get their facts straight), and the apparent obliviousness of Athens City and Limestone County leadership to the needs of those of us out here in the county who really could have used a news conference or two -- a press release, even -- on what we could expect and how things were progressing. Huntsville/Madison County did a fantastic job. The only news I heard was from THEM! Every time I turned on my radio -- Thursday morning, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning -- I heard from the Mayor of Huntsville, or the Mayor of Madison, or a spokesman for TVA... and in between, people calling in and asking "Can we get some information about Lawrence County? Limestone County? Where are OUR county commissioners? What about OUR power, OUR garbage pickup, OUR water?" And the radio guys would say "We'll try to find out, but they haven't contacted us and we haven't been able to reach them." Not until Saturday afternoon did I turn on my radio and hear a press conference with the Mayor of Athens; that was when I first heard that everyone in Limestone County should have power restored by Tuesday. That's pretty darn shameful, especially when you consider that at least one of the radio stations with wall-to-wall disaster coverage was broadcasting FROM THE CITY OF ATHENS, since it was the only place that had power throughout. They are, in my mind, without excuse.
While I was checking my email, I found one from our preacher, Jeremiah M., saying that Landy and Marsha R. had left a generator for us at the church. I called Jeremiah just to confirm this -- it seemed to good to be true, really -- and he said that yes, there was a generator for us. There was also information about our church's relief efforts for people in Tanner and East Limestone. In addition, the church was open for folks to charge electronics or use the wifi. I decided that after lunch, I would go into town to take some disaster relief supplies, and to pick up the generator, and to charge my phone.
Rose came in and said that another mom was taking her kids to the fire station on East Limestone Road for lunch. How those folks at the ELVFD managed it, I really don't know -- the fire station was right in the path of the tornado, and while it wasn't wiped out, their building did take significant damage. Nevertheless, they have mobilized from there to provide relief effort, including hot and cold food for volunteers and area residents. I'm impressed. Rose wanted to go to the VFD for lunch with her friends. I said that was fine, provided she came directly home after, because I was planning to go into town.
For lunch, I was planning to fry up a pack of pork chops out of the freezer, and steam some squash and onions. I'd had them in my crisper drawer, but really that just lengthens their shelf life. It is not necessary to refrigerate squash and onions. On the radio they were telling people "Throw it all out, there's nothing edible in there!" which I thought crossed the line from Food Safety Concern to Food Safety Paranoia. My pork chops were still frozen solid, and like I said, squash and onions don't actually require refrigeration to stay fresh. Neither do the various breads that I keep in my freezer. We may not use those up before they mold, now that they're thawed, but until they start to get fuzzy they're safe to eat. I think those announcements must have been made by men who don't know the first thing about cooking or food. Next time they need to get somebody to make those announcements who actually knows something about food spoilage. Anyway, Rose's decision to eat at the VFD left me with an extra pork chop, so I offered it, with squash and onions on the side, to Michael B. across the street. And then I washed all my dishes. By hand. Good glory did I miss having a dishwasher.
After lunch, I arranged with neighbor-mom Lita S. for Rose to stay the afternoon with her friends, and Cora and I went in to town. We stopped on our way in at Wal-Mart, where they were running on generator power. I was surprised, since the city of Athens had been the one oasis of electricity in our area, but something knocked out a strip that included Wal-Mart and, I discovered later, our pediatrician's office just up the road. We picked up baby formula, ready-to-eat foods, and assorted other items to contribute to the church's disaster relief effort. I also picked up some odds and ends for our family, including a birthday card for Cora and some Toy Story 3 birthday plates, napkins, and party favors, since I was afraid her birthday was going to turn out to be a cheerless affair.
From there we went to the church, where I plugged in my laptop and cell phone. Several people were there, either taking advantage of the electricity or organizing the relief effort. Jeremiah and Andy G. loaded the generator into George (George is my Saturn Outlook. His name is George. Yes, my car has a name. Why are you looking at me like that?), so I left Cora and walked down to CEI Bookstore on the square; there was another gift I had wanted for Cora for her birthday that I hadn't been able to get because of the storms. But CEI had closed at one. I stopped at Pablo's on the square on my way back, but they didn't have what I wanted, either. I stopped at Limestone Drugs, hoping at least to get a cold drink, but they didn't have what I was jonesing for, which was a cold Coke Zero. I walked back to the church empty-handed.
Sean was there, chatting with Jeremiah. I sent Cora home with him so that I could stop by Wal-Mart again, by myself, and try to get the one thing I still wanted for her. I sat waiting for my phone to charge, and taking advantage of the church's wifi.
My phone seemed to take forever to charge, and I finally gave up on it and decided to go on home. I wasn't clear on how generators work, exactly, but surely there's a way to use them to charge cell phones, yes? It was about 5 when I left the church. Sean asked if I was bringing supper home. I had thought he was going to grill supper; oops. So in addition to stopping at Wal-Mart, where I did not find what I wanted for Cora, and instead ended up getting her a Toy Story 3 coloring set, as well as some oil for the generator, I stopped at Lawler's and bought a whole smoked chicken, a pound of smoked pork and four no-meat baked potatoes to take home for supper, with four bottled Cokes (cold! Cold cold cold! Cold drinks were SUCH a luxury in this mess!) to drink. I had the gas can with me, and I was supposed to get gas for the generator, but it would have been one more stop and I was tired and hungry and there was already a little bit of gas in the can and I thought surely that would be enough to get the thing started... so I went home. I had asked a neighbor who had a generator if he could come help set the loaner up for us; it turned out that setting the thing up was straightforward and simple, but the thing was blamed heavy and we were very appreciative of the neighbor's dolly.
We turned on the generator, AFTER WHICH NORMAL CONVERSATION BECAME IMPOSSIBLE, EVEN INSIDE THE HOUSE, BECAUSE GENERATORS ARE VERY VERY LOUD. We ran two extension cords under the French doors from the back patio; I plugged my refrigerator into one of them, and went to the attic for a lamp to plug into the other -- my house has overhead lights in all of the rooms, so I think I only have two lamps; one decorative lamp in the bedroom, and a lamp I keep in the attic, where there is no other light -- and we had LIGHT! to eat our barbecue by. And when we were finished, I put the leftovers in my refrigerator! It was really quite nice, DESPITE THE NOISE!!
Up to that point, sending Rose and Cora to bathe and get ready for bed by candle-light and flash-light and oil lamp had not seemed like any great hardship, but that night, with a 60-watt light bulb shining in the great room, the bathrooms seemed eerily and unworkably dark. When you walk from the oil-lamp-lit great room to the candle-lit bathroom, your eyes are pretty much adjusted, but when you walk from the electric-lamp-lit great room to the candlelit bathroom, it's like being plunged into twilight. I hadn't really felt the lack of electric lighting quite as acutely as I did that night, when we had the contrast.
We put the girls to bed, and sat enjoying our lamp light for a while, until the generator, running on only a quarter gallon of gasoline, started to sputter and cough. Then we turned it off and went to bed.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
For the most part, I was not worried about the food I was losing to the power outage. Having seen the devastation all around me, I rather felt profoundly fortunate and grateful for everything I still had. Spoiled food? Eh. Small potatoes. Truly. But there was one thing that concerned me, and that was Cora's medicine.
One of Cora's medicines is an injectable that has to be kept refrigerated. It's a quality-of-life med, not a life-and-death med, so I felt that it was okay for her to not have it regularly while the power was out and we were limiting the times we opened/closed the refrigerator, but when I cleaned out my fridge on Friday, I had no place to put it that I felt confident about. And this is a Very. Expensive. Medication. This is not something where replacing a month's supply will cost me $30.
So when Sean went to work on Friday, I sent what we had with him. He was going to put it in one of the refrigerators on campus for safekeeping, until we got our power back. It was not an ideal situation; I don't like leaving Cora's medicine in an unsecured fridge, but sometimes the best you can do is the best you can do.
As Sean was heading in to town, he got a text message from a former student in Decatur, the town about 30 minutes south of Athens on the other side of the Tennessee River, which had been without power since the storm mangled the TVA lines. On Friday morning, some parts of Decatur got their power back. I heard from Phil S. when I spoke to him on Friday evening that this was because some bright soul at TVA remembered that when they put in the new distribution lines, lo these many years ago, they didn't take the old lines out; they left them in place. So, said this bright unnamed soul, if we could get THOSE lines up and running, we could get some power to some people really quickly. And it worked; by Friday morning, part of Decatur was running on old distribution lines. They didn't know how long it would last -- and in fact, I heard later that it didn't last the day; the old lines gave out in the end -- but that morning, some of Decatur had power, and at the very least this eased the gasoline-and-restaurant-traffic situation in Athens enough that Sean and Ashley Rose were able to get gasoline. Dear bright unnamed soul: you did a good deed, even if it didn't last. It was very helpful while it did.
Anyway, that morning one of Sean's former students texted him that Decatur had power, and Sean texted back "Hey, in that case, can you put something in your fridge for me?" So Jamie, the former student, came and met Sean and Ashley Rose in Athens and took Cora's medicine to keep in his fridge. Thanks, Jamie, for going out of your way for us! I am glad Cora's medicine was secure with you rather than in a community refrigerator.
On Saturday morning, Sean went in to work again. Finals week, natch. The girls and I stayed behind, this time. I intended to finish cleaning out my kitchen freezer and perhaps my garage freezer. But I had a computer and a 3G internet connection through my phone -- the cell phone service had been steadily improving, and by Saturday morning was almost normal again -- and I spent some time that morning looking for news.
What I found was lots and lots of coverage of William and Kate's wedding, plus a few stories about the Tuscaloosa tornado. Nary a mention in the national news of any other tornadoes or damage anywhere else in Alabama, except in very broad general terms ("the most recorded tornadoes in any 48-hour period," and other general statements like that, glossing over the very real, very broad damage here. Yes, it was an impressive number of tornadoes. Would you like to come see our very impressive tornado damage, and talk to some of our impressively damaged survivors? No? Well, we're real sorry we didn't put a camera on that big nasty EF-Fiver for ya. We'll try to do better next time.). That really, really peeved me. It continues to peeve me. I guess if you're going to have some sort of disaster, you'd better get it on video, or else you're going to be completely IGNORED by ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX News, and all of the rest of the national press. Tuscaloosa was ONE TORNADO, folks. North Alabama was hit by TWENTY MORE, and the one that went by us was an EF5 -- the most powerful tornado. There hasn't been an EF5 tornado in YEARS, and it killed probably about as many people as the Tuscaloosa twister (maybe more; hard figures are scarce yet), but I guess without video to put on the news, you don't get visits from the President and Charlie Sheen (Charlie Sheen? Srsly? Okay, maybe we caught a lucky break on that one). I spent some time finding and posting what coverage I could find -- the best coverage was from the Decatur Daily website -- just because I thought people ought to have SOME idea what had happened here.
Information about Limestone County utilities was also very hard to come by. I didn't find any. I know I heard people here in the county complaining as early as Thursday that Athens City was behaving as if nothing was really wrong, business as usual here, like the rest of us outside city limits somehow didn't even exist, and yeah, we did feel a bit neglected out here. Not in terms of assistance for those who were hit -- I don't think that was lacking -- or effort on the part of the utility company crews, who have been out working night and day, but on the part of the county leadership as far as getting information out, and making accomodations. The athletic association was trying to hold baseball games on Thursday night -- what? I'm not sure Athens City Schools were ever closed. Nevermind that some of their employees might have had storm damage to clean up. Report to work as normal! For the most part I have seen the very best of humanity throughout this ordeal, but my two complaints would be the stone cold shoulder the national news gave North Alabama (eta: for what SHOULD have happened, compare the coverage north Alabama didn't get with the coverage Joplin, MO is STILL getting - in fact, I've read more than one article about Joplin that erroneously talked about the 'other' EF-5 tornado, the one that hit Tuscaloosa, AL on April 27; actually, Tuscaloosa's was an EF-4. The other EF-5 hit NORTH ALABAMA, went 132 miles on the ground, was as wide as a mile and a quarter and killed 90 people, but the press remain collectively clueless about what happened here. They were too busy oohing over some ridiculously rich English woman's wedding gown to pay any attention when it happened, and now they'll NEVER get their facts straight), and the apparent obliviousness of Athens City and Limestone County leadership to the needs of those of us out here in the county who really could have used a news conference or two -- a press release, even -- on what we could expect and how things were progressing. Huntsville/Madison County did a fantastic job. The only news I heard was from THEM! Every time I turned on my radio -- Thursday morning, Friday afternoon, Saturday morning -- I heard from the Mayor of Huntsville, or the Mayor of Madison, or a spokesman for TVA... and in between, people calling in and asking "Can we get some information about Lawrence County? Limestone County? Where are OUR county commissioners? What about OUR power, OUR garbage pickup, OUR water?" And the radio guys would say "We'll try to find out, but they haven't contacted us and we haven't been able to reach them." Not until Saturday afternoon did I turn on my radio and hear a press conference with the Mayor of Athens; that was when I first heard that everyone in Limestone County should have power restored by Tuesday. That's pretty darn shameful, especially when you consider that at least one of the radio stations with wall-to-wall disaster coverage was broadcasting FROM THE CITY OF ATHENS, since it was the only place that had power throughout. They are, in my mind, without excuse.
While I was checking my email, I found one from our preacher, Jeremiah M., saying that Landy and Marsha R. had left a generator for us at the church. I called Jeremiah just to confirm this -- it seemed to good to be true, really -- and he said that yes, there was a generator for us. There was also information about our church's relief efforts for people in Tanner and East Limestone. In addition, the church was open for folks to charge electronics or use the wifi. I decided that after lunch, I would go into town to take some disaster relief supplies, and to pick up the generator, and to charge my phone.
Rose came in and said that another mom was taking her kids to the fire station on East Limestone Road for lunch. How those folks at the ELVFD managed it, I really don't know -- the fire station was right in the path of the tornado, and while it wasn't wiped out, their building did take significant damage. Nevertheless, they have mobilized from there to provide relief effort, including hot and cold food for volunteers and area residents. I'm impressed. Rose wanted to go to the VFD for lunch with her friends. I said that was fine, provided she came directly home after, because I was planning to go into town.
For lunch, I was planning to fry up a pack of pork chops out of the freezer, and steam some squash and onions. I'd had them in my crisper drawer, but really that just lengthens their shelf life. It is not necessary to refrigerate squash and onions. On the radio they were telling people "Throw it all out, there's nothing edible in there!" which I thought crossed the line from Food Safety Concern to Food Safety Paranoia. My pork chops were still frozen solid, and like I said, squash and onions don't actually require refrigeration to stay fresh. Neither do the various breads that I keep in my freezer. We may not use those up before they mold, now that they're thawed, but until they start to get fuzzy they're safe to eat. I think those announcements must have been made by men who don't know the first thing about cooking or food. Next time they need to get somebody to make those announcements who actually knows something about food spoilage. Anyway, Rose's decision to eat at the VFD left me with an extra pork chop, so I offered it, with squash and onions on the side, to Michael B. across the street. And then I washed all my dishes. By hand. Good glory did I miss having a dishwasher.
After lunch, I arranged with neighbor-mom Lita S. for Rose to stay the afternoon with her friends, and Cora and I went in to town. We stopped on our way in at Wal-Mart, where they were running on generator power. I was surprised, since the city of Athens had been the one oasis of electricity in our area, but something knocked out a strip that included Wal-Mart and, I discovered later, our pediatrician's office just up the road. We picked up baby formula, ready-to-eat foods, and assorted other items to contribute to the church's disaster relief effort. I also picked up some odds and ends for our family, including a birthday card for Cora and some Toy Story 3 birthday plates, napkins, and party favors, since I was afraid her birthday was going to turn out to be a cheerless affair.
From there we went to the church, where I plugged in my laptop and cell phone. Several people were there, either taking advantage of the electricity or organizing the relief effort. Jeremiah and Andy G. loaded the generator into George (George is my Saturn Outlook. His name is George. Yes, my car has a name. Why are you looking at me like that?), so I left Cora and walked down to CEI Bookstore on the square; there was another gift I had wanted for Cora for her birthday that I hadn't been able to get because of the storms. But CEI had closed at one. I stopped at Pablo's on the square on my way back, but they didn't have what I wanted, either. I stopped at Limestone Drugs, hoping at least to get a cold drink, but they didn't have what I was jonesing for, which was a cold Coke Zero. I walked back to the church empty-handed.
Sean was there, chatting with Jeremiah. I sent Cora home with him so that I could stop by Wal-Mart again, by myself, and try to get the one thing I still wanted for her. I sat waiting for my phone to charge, and taking advantage of the church's wifi.
My phone seemed to take forever to charge, and I finally gave up on it and decided to go on home. I wasn't clear on how generators work, exactly, but surely there's a way to use them to charge cell phones, yes? It was about 5 when I left the church. Sean asked if I was bringing supper home. I had thought he was going to grill supper; oops. So in addition to stopping at Wal-Mart, where I did not find what I wanted for Cora, and instead ended up getting her a Toy Story 3 coloring set, as well as some oil for the generator, I stopped at Lawler's and bought a whole smoked chicken, a pound of smoked pork and four no-meat baked potatoes to take home for supper, with four bottled Cokes (cold! Cold cold cold! Cold drinks were SUCH a luxury in this mess!) to drink. I had the gas can with me, and I was supposed to get gas for the generator, but it would have been one more stop and I was tired and hungry and there was already a little bit of gas in the can and I thought surely that would be enough to get the thing started... so I went home. I had asked a neighbor who had a generator if he could come help set the loaner up for us; it turned out that setting the thing up was straightforward and simple, but the thing was blamed heavy and we were very appreciative of the neighbor's dolly.
We turned on the generator, AFTER WHICH NORMAL CONVERSATION BECAME IMPOSSIBLE, EVEN INSIDE THE HOUSE, BECAUSE GENERATORS ARE VERY VERY LOUD. We ran two extension cords under the French doors from the back patio; I plugged my refrigerator into one of them, and went to the attic for a lamp to plug into the other -- my house has overhead lights in all of the rooms, so I think I only have two lamps; one decorative lamp in the bedroom, and a lamp I keep in the attic, where there is no other light -- and we had LIGHT! to eat our barbecue by. And when we were finished, I put the leftovers in my refrigerator! It was really quite nice, DESPITE THE NOISE!!
Up to that point, sending Rose and Cora to bathe and get ready for bed by candle-light and flash-light and oil lamp had not seemed like any great hardship, but that night, with a 60-watt light bulb shining in the great room, the bathrooms seemed eerily and unworkably dark. When you walk from the oil-lamp-lit great room to the candle-lit bathroom, your eyes are pretty much adjusted, but when you walk from the electric-lamp-lit great room to the candlelit bathroom, it's like being plunged into twilight. I hadn't really felt the lack of electric lighting quite as acutely as I did that night, when we had the contrast.
We put the girls to bed, and sat enjoying our lamp light for a while, until the generator, running on only a quarter gallon of gasoline, started to sputter and cough. Then we turned it off and went to bed.
And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.