Here's what Mom had to say about the Miami end of Hurricane Katrina. Bear in mind that this was a piddling little storm at this stage--at exactly the same time on Friday when Mom was suffering her damage in Miami, my brother in Ft. Lauderdale was telling me "this storm sucks" because it wasn't dramatic enough. Also: names have been changed to protect those whose names have been changed. Who is "Troy"? Who are the local and state politicians with exploding insides? I'll never tell. (Psst--see me after class!)
Katrina, Chapter 1, Friday, August 26, 2005
Well, we got through the storm. It was way, way worse than anticipated in our area and the damage in our immediate area is way worse than in Andrew. However, we were pretty lucky by not having any structural damage that we can see. We were some of the first people to lose power. We've been without power since 4:30 yesterday afternoon. Our entire yard (and roof) are thick with debris: leaves and small branches mostly. We didn't lose any trees and the roof looks intact; we'll know more when we get the stuff cleared off. Our neighbors lost a lot of trees. Guess there's something to be said for native vegetation. I'll bet that Fairchild Garden is going to look really bad.
We got hammered from about 5:30 pm yesterday until about 3:00 am today. We opened the curtain for the sliding glass door and watched. Sometimes it was just a big grey blur out there with heavy wind and rain. Sometimes the rain came in horizontally. That's when our sliders that sit behind about 10 feet of roofing got wet.
Everyone is shocked at the amount of damage done by this small Cat. 1 hurricane. They are saying that the damage looks more like at Cat. 3 or 4. In some places it does, in others it doesn't. Must have been some pretty powerful micro-bursts that hit our area. I didn't see nearly the same damage while I traveled to work. But the area around work got pretty hammered too.
It's amazingly hot. I guess I'm lucky that I got called in to work where they have power and food.
Katrina, Chapter 2, Saturday, August 27, 2005
We still don't have power back at the house. I worked for nearly 10 hours yesterday, a good thing altogether since they have a generator here and A/C. The not-quite-so-good thing was the free lunch from B. S. Catering. About an hour after lunch, our insides started exploding. I'm not sure whether they all ate or not, but it is entirely possible that various politicians from local and state levels all had exploding insides yesterday. Hopefully, they got better food.
We camped out for the night in Troy's office on a comforter on the floor. A bunch of us without power camped out in different offices. It kinda appears that maybe it wasn't exactly, shall we say, company-approved since we were always on the lookout for security patrols. FPL says maybe 90% of the power will be restored by Tuesday. Anyone want to make bets on whether our power will be back by then?
Most of the traffic lights are still out. Most of the people treat the intersections as if they and they alone had a green light. If you stop at the intersection where there's no working light, you get rear-ended. I haven't seen any widespread flooding, though I hear there was quite a bit in the deep south around Homestead and the Redlands.
So, I am back here at work this morning, 6:30 am. I'm half hoping that they let me go early so I can help with the clean-up. I'm kinda half hoping that they don't, so I don't have to help with the clean-up until tomorrow. There's no way to cool off after hard work in the yard, except to take that cold, cold shower.
Katrina, Chapter 3, Sunday, August 29, 2005
I worked a full day again yesterday, then bought an air mattress on the way home at Wal-Mart. Troy worked around the house and yard and getting the generator going. Anyway, the power was still out and we spent Saturday night in Troy's office again.
Katrina, Chapter 4, Monday, August 30, 2005
On Sunday morning, Lee found a Starbucks open in Broward County and brought us cappuccinos and cranberry scones. It felt like luxury. We worked in the yard, moving the orchids, palms, and tomato plants back in their places, and picking up debris. My knee and hip are killing me with all the lifting. Troy and Teddy got the generator going. It's too small to power much, but we were able to get the refrigerator in the garage going for a while.
We threw out most of the contents of the house refrigerator and the mangos from the freezer in the garage refrigerator. We had hopes at one time of making mango wine.
We took our cold showers and looked for a hotel room. Nothing available, not even at the hotel that is always vacant because it's tucked in an improbable location. We can't stay long at Troy's work, so we are starting to be concerned. Maybe we'll have to get a bigger generator.
Back to Troy's office. All the other campers were gone. We turned in early, though Troy read by lantern light for a while. The air mattress was not as comfortable as the night before. We added more air, but I guess we were just pretty beat up and wouldn't have been comfortable anywhere.
As we pulled in to the house just before 6:00 am today, we saw that power was on. Yippee! It hasn't been since Hurricane Andrew that I looked forward more to doing laundry and vacuuming the floor. But, since it's back to work, I'll have to defer that pleasure until later.
Now we are standing vigil for New Orleans.
No comments:
Post a Comment