(no subject)
We have officially survived our first hurricane - ever. Our house hasn't come through as well as we did but a leaky roof, a ceiling collapse in one room and some missing shingles and debris in the front yard isn't anything worse than we had growing up. I don't know if we had it all at the same time but I remember each of those instances seperately to some degree. Or at least I remeber fixing a roof, a ceiling, and cleaning up yards.
I don't think I want to ride out another with the kids here though. We got very lucky in that we never lost power and therefore never lost AC (about a million other people did - no exaggeration). We also never had to worry about adjusting our food habits. The girls weren't any more difficult to deal with than usual but I dont know how different that would be with no power. I don't really want to find out either.
The storm lasted from Tuesday to Thursday. Tuesday I was kind of enjoying myself. I cleaned out the garage and did a few other things I wanted to get around to. There was some wind and the occasional rain but all in all it was quite pleasant until the evening when the storm got closer. Even then we mostly enjoyed it. We did not enjoy it parking south of us for hours. The track on Isaac was extremely goofy and it just didn't move. I think it amounted to getting hit by a category 1 hurricane 3 or 4 times back to back. This meant Wednesday it was still clearing out but close enough that emergency crews couldn't really do much. That was also when we got leak in the roof above the girls room.
We were again very lucky. We noticed it leaking when we got Loreley up from her nap. We put some buckets down and starting getting things out from under the wet. We moved everything across the hall to a spare bedroom that was pretty much empty. I had got the rug, Portia's bed and was putting Loreley's crib back together when the ceiling collapsed in the other room. This actually made catching the water in buckets easier since we put up a tarp to funnel the water to one bucket. This also made a big mess as all the blown in insulation splatted all over the place including some of the walls. It took a while to clean up but we got some assisstance from our hometeachers. We still have to deal with this but for the moment we are okay as is, fortunately we have planty of space and don't need the room that is compromised, it will be nice to get it back though.
Thursday was still a little windy, definately cloudy, occasionaly rainy but nice enough people were out working and cleaning things up. A lot of buisnesses were still closed and people were encouraged to stay off the roads to let crews go to work. I was busy cleaning up the yard of all the branches, shingles, and debris. We put a tarp on the roof, it is a very temporary fix and won't last much of a wind but hopefully good enough until we can get the roof started. I also moved the gate that fell over at work. I love the fact that we had a forklift to make that job easier.
Friday it was back to work and business as usual. Other than the roof issue it was almost fun riding out the hurricane. I got three extra days paid vacation and some things done at home that I wanted to do for a good long time. Of course if I had just worked I might not have had to go in Saturday. Oh well. I also got to meet a lot of neighbors Thursday. Nothing brings people together like a natural disaster. It is a little disturbing that people measure their time here by the hurricane that hit after they moved in. Next door has been here since Betsy, across the street is an Andrew who is proficient at judging a hurricanes strength by the amount of tree limbs and debris in his yard. I am now Isaac. Wonderful.
I don't think I want to ride out another with the kids here though. We got very lucky in that we never lost power and therefore never lost AC (about a million other people did - no exaggeration). We also never had to worry about adjusting our food habits. The girls weren't any more difficult to deal with than usual but I dont know how different that would be with no power. I don't really want to find out either.
The storm lasted from Tuesday to Thursday. Tuesday I was kind of enjoying myself. I cleaned out the garage and did a few other things I wanted to get around to. There was some wind and the occasional rain but all in all it was quite pleasant until the evening when the storm got closer. Even then we mostly enjoyed it. We did not enjoy it parking south of us for hours. The track on Isaac was extremely goofy and it just didn't move. I think it amounted to getting hit by a category 1 hurricane 3 or 4 times back to back. This meant Wednesday it was still clearing out but close enough that emergency crews couldn't really do much. That was also when we got leak in the roof above the girls room.
We were again very lucky. We noticed it leaking when we got Loreley up from her nap. We put some buckets down and starting getting things out from under the wet. We moved everything across the hall to a spare bedroom that was pretty much empty. I had got the rug, Portia's bed and was putting Loreley's crib back together when the ceiling collapsed in the other room. This actually made catching the water in buckets easier since we put up a tarp to funnel the water to one bucket. This also made a big mess as all the blown in insulation splatted all over the place including some of the walls. It took a while to clean up but we got some assisstance from our hometeachers. We still have to deal with this but for the moment we are okay as is, fortunately we have planty of space and don't need the room that is compromised, it will be nice to get it back though.
Thursday was still a little windy, definately cloudy, occasionaly rainy but nice enough people were out working and cleaning things up. A lot of buisnesses were still closed and people were encouraged to stay off the roads to let crews go to work. I was busy cleaning up the yard of all the branches, shingles, and debris. We put a tarp on the roof, it is a very temporary fix and won't last much of a wind but hopefully good enough until we can get the roof started. I also moved the gate that fell over at work. I love the fact that we had a forklift to make that job easier.
Friday it was back to work and business as usual. Other than the roof issue it was almost fun riding out the hurricane. I got three extra days paid vacation and some things done at home that I wanted to do for a good long time. Of course if I had just worked I might not have had to go in Saturday. Oh well. I also got to meet a lot of neighbors Thursday. Nothing brings people together like a natural disaster. It is a little disturbing that people measure their time here by the hurricane that hit after they moved in. Next door has been here since Betsy, across the street is an Andrew who is proficient at judging a hurricanes strength by the amount of tree limbs and debris in his yard. I am now Isaac. Wonderful.