Monday, June 2, 2008

No Power, No Posts

This brief hiatus in updates brought to you courtesy of a big summer thunderstorm complete with tornado and 22-hour power outage.

Friday night was a wild one in our house. Tornado sirens sent us to the basement about 10:30 p.m., and the power went out shortly after. We got 4 inches of rain in short order, and Jeff started hauling water out of the sump hole and out of the basement. He couldn't keep up, and after an unsuccessful hunt for a generator, had to give up about 2 a.m. At least we were home and he had a chance to move things and minimize the flood damage.

Early the next morning I called friends who brought a generator and saved us. (Thanks Ed and Emily!) Before long we had most of the neighbors plugged in, too. We got the water out in short order, and got on the list to be dried out.

In and amongst all this, Jeff was getting ready to leave for Austria for a week for work. I thought we'd never get him out of the house and on that plane. It was a little tough for him to leave his mom, Amelia and me in the midst of all that chaos. I know if Carol hadn't been here he never would have left. But, we packed his suitcase and convinced him we could watch carpet dry without him.

Despite initial reports that it could be late Monday or early Tuesday before we our power was restored, we sprang back to life about 8 p.m. Saturday, much to our relief. We were in full camping mode by then, because in our house no electricity also means no water since we're on a well.

All in all, a wet basement wasn't too bad considering the damage other people sustained. Even just outside the neighborhood there were some big trees down on houses and cars. And, since it's early summer the weather was nice and we could open up the house and lay things out in the yard to dry.

Carol has spent the last few days cleaning and cooking to help us out, and before the storm the house looked better than it has in a month. Then we descended back into chaos! A couple hours with power though, and we were back in tip-top shape pretty quickly.

Thank heavens for family and friends we can lean on!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well, Amelia, Grandma D. is back at her house and Daddy is back at your house now, yea! You can play basketball with Daddy, I bet.
I had a really good time with you, girl, going out for coffee in the morning - well, I had the coffee and you had a straw and the left-over raw sugar! The waterpark was fun, except that you did not want to go home.
and the rain - and more rain - the rain kept coming down!
Have a good time watching Dora Swimming! I love you and miss you!
Grandma D.