About this time last year we were sitting in the dark eating an MRE and waiting for our power to come back on. When Ike hit our town, we did not get much rain but the wind was pretty fierce and a lot of trees went down and roofs were damaged. After the storm blew through the area, it was pretty much a war zone down here with all of the debris and flotsam. Damaged houses/roofs, downed trees/power lines, blown over fences, flooded streets. In our area, the rain & water was not as bad along the coast, but the destruction was widespread.
What was most disruptive was the widescale loss of power. We lost power late in the evening on the night when Ike landed and did not get our lights (and A/C) back on for 11 days. Some people were without power longer. What chapped me was that I would not have expected it. Our neighborhood has underground power lines and I would have never anticipated losing power for such a long period of time. While underground lines are great and fairl secure from storm damage, the weakness occurs where the power comes into the neighborhood. Alongside of our neighborhood, the lines came in through the normal over head lines and, when the wind picked up, lines went down and most of the transformers blew. It took many linesmen & women weeks to diagnose where the line was blown and repair the fault. Some of our neighbors got power back within a day, other sections (like mine) were without power for MUCH longer. It was highly frustrating to see your neighbors across the street with lights and A/C (and tv) and we were eating dinner by candle light. We tried to maintain our sense of humor, but it did wear thin, Even without power, we were lucky. The weather post Ike was nice (for south Texas). We had water and our gas was still operable, so we had hot water for showers. I had prepped the house for an extended outage so I had ice and we cooked out on my bbq grill every night. In situations like this one, I rely on the Marine Corps mantra: Improvise, Adapt & Overcome. I cooked outside, did a freezer dump, cooked up the perishibles first, used a set of solar power yard lights for indoor lighting, charged my cell phone in the truck. Still, it got old. Momma and I got frustrated with the power company and their standard answer that we would have power back on "as quickly as possible". I tried to understand & appreciate the worker's efforts (they were working 16-20 hour days to restore power throughout the entire Houston area), but we were a bit testy at times.
One of the really nice outcome of the situation is that we saw most of our neighbors out of their houses down here during the outtage. People were out walking and helping each other clean up. Neighbors pitched in a helped cut down and clear away downed trees. Our neighbors/friends would loan each other ice & food. My next door neighbor went up to the FEMA distribution center and picked up some ice and MREs for us. Some of those who did have power, would run extension cords from their house across the fence/street to their neighbors who were still in the dark. On day 8, we were eating a romantic MRE dinner by candlelight when my scout buddy from down the street (who had power), showed up at my doorstep with his generator and enough gas to power it for several days. Somehow, through all of this chaos and tragedy, people bonded together and helped each other out. Terri has an excellent post today about knowing (or not knowing your neighbor) and I find that somewhat comforting to know that we have some great neighbors.
If you don't know the guys who live behind you, go meet them. Don't wait for the next catastrphy to get accquanted. Of course if they are axe murderers, you might want to go slow...
