Oh how we love hurricanes
So for those of you who didn't know/didn't notice, we got hit by a big-assed hurricane named Juan on Sunday night. After spending the afternoon doing the usual stuff - bringing in the patio furniture, wedging the garbage can into the kindershed, etc, we settled down for what we thought would be a good show, and not much else. NS gets hit by storms all the time, but they're usually tropical storms or the tails of hurricanes that have gone offcourse and missed us for the most part. We were in for a surprise with Juan. It hit us dead-on, at Class 1. I feel for those people in the Carolinas who've been hit by bigger stuff. This was quite enough for us.
11pm - It starts to get really windy. We lose power at the house. Geekboy Blair hooks the cablemodem up to the powerpak we have (Yay Canadian Tire) and goofs about on the laptop for a minute. Then we go upstairs and he has a shower while I watch some tv on the little 13" and the powerpak.
11:30pm - Storm is in full force. The house AND the bed are shaking with each gust. No, it's not Blair and I making the bed rock, sadly.
12am - My joints are killing me from the ultra-low pressure. Ow.
12:30am - Surrounding communities lose power. It starts to get really dark. Looking out the window, we can see neighbours scanning the street and their properties with flashlights. One guy keeps running out and moving his vehicles around. The neighbours are in their basement because the baby and the dog are freaking out.
1am - Siding comes off the house across the street. Green bin hits Blair's car and sets off the alarm. Hunk of siding from up the street hits our house and makes us (briefly) think we're losing siding too.
2am - Still really damned windy. I'm dozing, but Blair is spending five minutes lying down, five minutes at the window in the bedroom, five at the bathroom window, repeat. He's giggling everytime he can see a transformer blow up in the distance.
6:30am - It's calm but still overcast. Blair gets up as the sun comes up (was he ever asleep?) and I wake up to him looking out the window and saying "Wow" and "Shit" to no one in particular. I try to ignore him but curiosity gets the better of me and I get up too. The street is littered in little bits of tree, big bits of tree, garbage, random stuff. A tree fell in our back yard and managed to land in the 15ft of space we have between our houses. Didn't hit anything. The BBQ is knocked over on the back deck (!) The house across the street is missing a BIG hunk of siding. Blair gets dressed and goes outside. There's still no power.
7:30am - I call my boss, about 1.5 hours away. He wants to come into the city as usual. I try to talk him out of it, but he's convinced power will be on by the time he arrives. I roll my eyes and hang up. Blair's office calls and says not to come in. The generator there kicked in fine though. Lucky them.
8am - Call my parents. Like my boss, they're far away and barely felt a thing with the hurricane.
10am - Take a walk around the neighbourhood. Looks like we got off easy. Lots of people lost siding - some even big chunks of it. The guy across the street also lost some shingles. No fun. There are bashed up trees and pulled up bushes everywhere. In general, stuff is pretty trashed.
10:30am - My boss calls to say he's going home, because there's nothing he can do in the city. I say "I kind of told you so..." he says (in his German accent) "Yes. Well....*pause*...shut up." My boss is weird.
11am - I take a crappy nap. The weather is still weird - humid and hot so it's no good for sleeping. Bah.
1:30pm - Power comes back on in my office. I try to call the sys admin. Boss tries to call the sys admin. No luck. Grungy and sleep-deprived I go into the office to start powering stuff up.
2pm - I get everything up and running, with the help of a little phone support from Moose, your friendly neighbourhood computer guru. I can't get the database servers running so he comes in and does pretty much what I did, but it works for him. Digital "laying on of hands" or something. Dammit.
5pm - Moose and I go down to the waterfront in front of our building to survey the damage. There's lots and lots to survey. Huge chunks of the waterfront boardwalk are no longer in existence. Big parts of the floating wharves are thrown up onto the sidewalk. Some of the parkinglot closest to the waterfront is slipping into the sea...and many of the huge wharves are pretty damaged. Also, something sunk and is now sitting on the bottom of the harbour next to one of the wharves. I don't know what it was, but it had masts and that's all you can see now.
7pm - Blair and I cook steak fajitas on the sideburner of our BBQ, because the meat is going to go bad in our fridge either way. They're not bad, but I can't see how much spice I'm putting in. They're very hot. We eat them by candlelight.
8pm - After sharing a low-pressure trickling shower with the last of warm water (discovered while rinsing some dishes, woo!) We decide to go check the generator and the servers running at Blair's office down the hill, and charge up the powerpak. Run into his boss in the parkinglot. Yay. Climb up 6 flights and sit around waiting for the pak to charge. Dicover outlet it's plugged into is dead. Declare selves brilliant and decide to go home.
9:45pm - On the way home, we notice lights coming on. Streetlights are on up the street to our house, then they're on on our street! Cheering ensues! We get home and note that the cats don't appear to care. But we do! I do some dishes and then have a real shower. Ahh.
Today, I'm back in the office, with approximately half my coworkers. Some are still MIA, which is worrisome. Some of the city still doesn't have power, and the cell phone services are barely working. Let's hope it's a case of being unable to communicate...
11pm - It starts to get really windy. We lose power at the house. Geekboy Blair hooks the cablemodem up to the powerpak we have (Yay Canadian Tire) and goofs about on the laptop for a minute. Then we go upstairs and he has a shower while I watch some tv on the little 13" and the powerpak.
11:30pm - Storm is in full force. The house AND the bed are shaking with each gust. No, it's not Blair and I making the bed rock, sadly.
12am - My joints are killing me from the ultra-low pressure. Ow.
12:30am - Surrounding communities lose power. It starts to get really dark. Looking out the window, we can see neighbours scanning the street and their properties with flashlights. One guy keeps running out and moving his vehicles around. The neighbours are in their basement because the baby and the dog are freaking out.
1am - Siding comes off the house across the street. Green bin hits Blair's car and sets off the alarm. Hunk of siding from up the street hits our house and makes us (briefly) think we're losing siding too.
2am - Still really damned windy. I'm dozing, but Blair is spending five minutes lying down, five minutes at the window in the bedroom, five at the bathroom window, repeat. He's giggling everytime he can see a transformer blow up in the distance.
6:30am - It's calm but still overcast. Blair gets up as the sun comes up (was he ever asleep?) and I wake up to him looking out the window and saying "Wow" and "Shit" to no one in particular. I try to ignore him but curiosity gets the better of me and I get up too. The street is littered in little bits of tree, big bits of tree, garbage, random stuff. A tree fell in our back yard and managed to land in the 15ft of space we have between our houses. Didn't hit anything. The BBQ is knocked over on the back deck (!) The house across the street is missing a BIG hunk of siding. Blair gets dressed and goes outside. There's still no power.
7:30am - I call my boss, about 1.5 hours away. He wants to come into the city as usual. I try to talk him out of it, but he's convinced power will be on by the time he arrives. I roll my eyes and hang up. Blair's office calls and says not to come in. The generator there kicked in fine though. Lucky them.
8am - Call my parents. Like my boss, they're far away and barely felt a thing with the hurricane.
10am - Take a walk around the neighbourhood. Looks like we got off easy. Lots of people lost siding - some even big chunks of it. The guy across the street also lost some shingles. No fun. There are bashed up trees and pulled up bushes everywhere. In general, stuff is pretty trashed.
10:30am - My boss calls to say he's going home, because there's nothing he can do in the city. I say "I kind of told you so..." he says (in his German accent) "Yes. Well....*pause*...shut up." My boss is weird.
11am - I take a crappy nap. The weather is still weird - humid and hot so it's no good for sleeping. Bah.
1:30pm - Power comes back on in my office. I try to call the sys admin. Boss tries to call the sys admin. No luck. Grungy and sleep-deprived I go into the office to start powering stuff up.
2pm - I get everything up and running, with the help of a little phone support from Moose, your friendly neighbourhood computer guru. I can't get the database servers running so he comes in and does pretty much what I did, but it works for him. Digital "laying on of hands" or something. Dammit.
5pm - Moose and I go down to the waterfront in front of our building to survey the damage. There's lots and lots to survey. Huge chunks of the waterfront boardwalk are no longer in existence. Big parts of the floating wharves are thrown up onto the sidewalk. Some of the parkinglot closest to the waterfront is slipping into the sea...and many of the huge wharves are pretty damaged. Also, something sunk and is now sitting on the bottom of the harbour next to one of the wharves. I don't know what it was, but it had masts and that's all you can see now.
7pm - Blair and I cook steak fajitas on the sideburner of our BBQ, because the meat is going to go bad in our fridge either way. They're not bad, but I can't see how much spice I'm putting in. They're very hot. We eat them by candlelight.
8pm - After sharing a low-pressure trickling shower with the last of warm water (discovered while rinsing some dishes, woo!) We decide to go check the generator and the servers running at Blair's office down the hill, and charge up the powerpak. Run into his boss in the parkinglot. Yay. Climb up 6 flights and sit around waiting for the pak to charge. Dicover outlet it's plugged into is dead. Declare selves brilliant and decide to go home.
9:45pm - On the way home, we notice lights coming on. Streetlights are on up the street to our house, then they're on on our street! Cheering ensues! We get home and note that the cats don't appear to care. But we do! I do some dishes and then have a real shower. Ahh.
Today, I'm back in the office, with approximately half my coworkers. Some are still MIA, which is worrisome. Some of the city still doesn't have power, and the cell phone services are barely working. Let's hope it's a case of being unable to communicate...