still in love with plumbing!
The stories coming out of Galveston are very sad. We count ourselves lucky to have been more fortunate.
Still...it was a real eye-opener to live 65 hours without electricity. The worst part for us was the fact that our water-well could not function without it. We had plenty of drinking water stocked up. But--toilets require water too. Luckily we'd learned from Rita back in 05 that our bathtub wasn't holding water, so in the interim we'd purchased a stout plug. Of course, one bathtub full of water only gives you so many bucket-flushes, and when we were finally able to get through to the "report outages" line [that took 36 hours], we were told it would be anywhere from 3 hours to 3 weeks before we'd get power back, so that one bathtub full of water had to be used as minimally as possible. Lucky for us, we know someone who lives in an apartment building who had functioning plumbing even though he didn't have electricity for warming the water. He brought us 4 gallons of water a day to add to our tub. We exchanged that for batteries and food.
And only dreamed of what a shower would feel like :)
Flushing the toilet without an incoming source of water means pouring water into the bowl in hopes of a gravity flush. That works sort of well...if you don't use toilet paper. TP clogs the drain with insufficient water, so we had to place said debris in a trash bag and carry it to the garbage outside. At least we had a tub of water. One of our neighbors found out their tub wouldn't hold water and they told us they were "drawing straws to see who can poo today."
So I'm still loving my plumbing now that I have it back.
Another neighbor found a crew to work on his yard. Said crew has already contracted for another neighbor but we're next on the list. I love yard work, but we are certainly going to need help with it this time.
Good wishes for all in the greater Houston area. And thanks to those whose generosity and patience have been so helpful.
Still...it was a real eye-opener to live 65 hours without electricity. The worst part for us was the fact that our water-well could not function without it. We had plenty of drinking water stocked up. But--toilets require water too. Luckily we'd learned from Rita back in 05 that our bathtub wasn't holding water, so in the interim we'd purchased a stout plug. Of course, one bathtub full of water only gives you so many bucket-flushes, and when we were finally able to get through to the "report outages" line [that took 36 hours], we were told it would be anywhere from 3 hours to 3 weeks before we'd get power back, so that one bathtub full of water had to be used as minimally as possible. Lucky for us, we know someone who lives in an apartment building who had functioning plumbing even though he didn't have electricity for warming the water. He brought us 4 gallons of water a day to add to our tub. We exchanged that for batteries and food.
And only dreamed of what a shower would feel like :)
Flushing the toilet without an incoming source of water means pouring water into the bowl in hopes of a gravity flush. That works sort of well...if you don't use toilet paper. TP clogs the drain with insufficient water, so we had to place said debris in a trash bag and carry it to the garbage outside. At least we had a tub of water. One of our neighbors found out their tub wouldn't hold water and they told us they were "drawing straws to see who can poo today."
So I'm still loving my plumbing now that I have it back.
Another neighbor found a crew to work on his yard. Said crew has already contracted for another neighbor but we're next on the list. I love yard work, but we are certainly going to need help with it this time.
Good wishes for all in the greater Houston area. And thanks to those whose generosity and patience have been so helpful.