slightly relevant

Just when I get my bloggery mojo back, my internet has to go and be cut off by a hurricane! I swear, I just can’t catch a break, can I? :P

Image thanks to boston.com.

So, for those of you interested (haha), here’s a run down of what I’ve been doing since Ike:

Thu, 11 September: Went home from work around noon. Bought some supplies from the store (which was kind of a mad house). Spent the night in my apartment, and stayed up way too late since I didn’t have work the next day.

Fri, 12 September: Went to my parents’ house around 4:30 pm. Spilled the damn disposable litter box in my car, so I had to go back home and get some more litter, which was okay because I forgot the bag of food I was goignto bring over anyway. My dad had boarded up most of the windows (all of the ones facing the direction from which Ike would be coming, at least), and we settled in. It was my parents, my sister, myself, my cat Gen, and my parents three dogs. I was made to watch Hairspray by my mom and sister while we ate the tortilla soup that I made (which was delicious, of course). The winds really started picking up around 8:00. Around 10:00 my brother texted to say that he lost power at his house already (it was him and his wife, her parents, and their three cats). I settled onto my couch (where I would be sleeping) and finished reading Breaking Dawn. I was about 10 pages from the end when the power went out, at about 11:30 (I finished reading by candlelight!).

Sat, 13 September: I was up for a long time. Genovieve got more and more restless, sitting very close to me and wanting to look out the windows to see what all the noise was. The wind continued to get stronger and louder and more forceful and steady. There was rattling. There was debris flying. There was a pretty constant barrage of lighting outside (we could see out the back window) but no thunder. It continued like this, getting worse and worse (wind and rain) until about 8 in the morning. I woke up around 11:00, hot and sweaty already since the air conditioner wasn’t working. My dad uncovered the windows and we opened them to let the nice cool wind blow through the house. Gen sat on the window sill enjoying the breeze for a long time. The back fence was completely gone. Plenty of branches and leaves were taken from the oak trees in the front yard. Our neighbors kept telling us one of our pine trees was going to fall over (it looked okay to us). Minimal damage! The streets were barely even puddled, too.

My brother got his power back sometime in the early afternoon. We were hopeful. I went to check my apartment. No power there, either. It got later. It got hotter. It got more humid. It got darker. No light. No air. No relief. We sat in the car and listened to the radio. Most of the city was without power and water, and they were projecting that it would take weeks to restore power to everyone. Around 7:00 I took a nap on my parents’ couch, but woke up soon because I felt like I was suffocating from all the humidity.

Later that night I went back to my house to check the power. It was on! Thank the goat gods! We all trucked it to my house and settled in with the cool air, cool beverages, and watched season one of Heroes on DVD. My sister stayed the night.

Sun, 14 September: It felt great to take a shower and have cool air. But I was very lucky. My apartment complex backs up to a hospital, and apparently my building is on the same power grid as the hospital, which is the only reason I got my power back on so quickly. The people across the parking lot are still without. The only damage to my apartment was that I lost the screens on my bottom window (and I am really missing them!). My sister and I went to get some food at IHOP, the only place that was open. It was kind of a long wait, and they had a limited menu, but we didn’t care. It was hot food. All of the street lights were out. If businesses were open (which were few and far between) they were most likely only taking cash. My parents still didn’t have power, so they came over again. We spent most of the day watching more Heroes.

Mon, 15 September: Still no power for my parents. My boss told me not to come back to work until Wednesday. My culianry school was supposed to start today, but they called to tell me it’s been postponed until next Monday. It was another long day of “not much”. My sister and I went to Target to find that they had hardly any food. We went home with bottled water, cereal, and ramen. My parents finally got power back around 9:00 pm.

Tue, 16 September: No work. No class. The city is still a mess. Comcast, my lovely internet and cable provider has no ETA on when my service will be restored.

Wed, 17 September: I showed up to work at 7:30 this morning because nobody told me that we’re working 9-3 this week. Great! Our building has been asked to keep the a/c units off so they can distribute that power to residents in the area. A lot of the city is still without power. My boss and by BFF included. Most of the street lights are still out. A lot of businesses are starting to re-open (and having fun price gouging - I paid $8.29 for a handful of oranges). It is going to be a long time before things are back to normal. :(

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 17th, 2008 at 1:34 pm and is filed under Fotoblog, Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.