Well like most visitors it is sometimes nice to greet them and regrettable when they leave . NOT in this case , Irma was not welcome and then hung around for a lot longer then anyone wanted her to. Like some visitors she was windy , really windy and loud. You might even say she was all wet , really wet , in everything she did and everywhere she went.
We sat the storm out and only had a messy yard to deal with when everything cleared. The neighbors trees decided to drop a lot of branches , twigs , leaves and anything else they could throw our way. We found out later that even half of their largest tree tried to trespass into our yard but did not make it over the chain link fence. It had to cover most of their back yard to get to ours and it was not the tallest branches that broke.
At the start we could hear branches scooting across the roof. Then as the wind switched from the North East to East even more branches. Finally from the South East that helped to clear even more branches off the roof. The the South wind cleaned all the rest off the roof and piled it on the north side of the house and the porches roof.
All the time we had power , it would flicker but stay on. Then the crushing blow which did our power in. The wind switched from the South and out went the power. 3:00 A.M. Monday morning ....DARKNESS.
The dark and power outage went from 3:00 A.M. Monday morning to 2:30 A.M. Saturday morning.
Out came the camping lanterns , candle lantern and a few other battery powered lanterns we have here for power outages.
Monday morning , surveying the damage in the area and cleaning our yard. The neighbor across the street picked up branches in his yard and then went to retrieved his lawn mower. He placed it under some bushes in the back corner of his yard. BIG MISTAKE. It's a downward slope from his house and all he could see of his lawn mower was the handle sticking out of a newly formed lake in the lower portion of his back yard.
To make a long story shorter , I got my mower out and mowed the back yard of my place. then went over and mowed his front yard and then my front yard. A fresh mower yard helps to take away from all the destruction and devastation in the area.
Everyone has cleaned up most of the area and the road is lined with large plies of brush , tree branches , limbs and even trunks of trees. The rest of the standing timber is a little sparse on vegetation and really does not offer a lot of shade , anymore.
Neighbors do help neighbors. I loaned a couple of my camping lanterns to a neighbor down the street. Later on he brought me a couple of bags of ice which were really appreciated since I did not have any or power. his ice came into being because his neighbor ran a extension cord over to their refrigerator and ice maker.
Two days later the wife had the heat get to her and the neighbor across the street invited her over to there place. So she went across the street and stayed with them ( Ed & Roger ) since they were the 1st to get any power back on . Till the rest of us would get any power there home was quite popular.
Yours truly stayed home and was sort of camping on the back porch. If you can call it camping when the two homes to the East have generators running , the two homes to the West have generators running and you are in the middle with open windows and a battery powered ( 2 D Cells ) SMALL camping fan and a candle lantern. The other lanterns were to bright so I used the candle one , might as well enjoy life , Right ?
Cooking meals on a camping stove and finding ice at stores to keep in the cooler on the back porch. Finally Friday night some restaurants were open so the wife and I went to the local IHop and got their triple decked BLT with a ton of fries on the side and one nice spear of a Dill Pickle , Drinks were ICE Tea ( Unsweetened ) . For me it was a pleasure to sit in a air conditioned place , eat a meal I did not have to cook on a single burner stove.
Got home to a open and rater warm , almost hot home , I keep telling my self it's not that hot , Nope it's not that hot , Right ...Your fooling no one. We never lost water pressure so it was a lot of COLD showers for me , the hot water is gas heated but a hot shower was not on my agenda for the last 6 days.
Hurricanes , Windy , loud , driving rain and strong winds at the start. Since we were on the dirty side of the storm we had tornado threats during all of the storm till the eye moved north of us , then just wind and rain. That runs for a while and then things start to quiet down.
Now comes the generators , Chain Saws , Vehicles , Loud People and most any other noise you might think of.
The reason Ed & Roger managed to have power restored quickly is that the power company did the small repair jobs to get more folks on line.
My side of the road was fed by a feeder line that went down and that is one of the last lines to get repaired. Makes sense to me , they can do all of the repairs on the dead line to individual homes safely. Then repair the feeder line and when they are done flip the switch and everyone off that feeder line gets power.
2:30 A.M. Saturday Morning I woke up because there was a light on. Dam !!!! That's the Dinning room light we left on so we could tell when the power came back on. Up and around the house closing windows and securing the place , turning on the AC to get some cool air and just rejoicing.
I wounder how long it will be till she sees the power is back on over here ?
Saturday morning about 7:00 A.M. YEP... I get a phone call , the phone is working again. The power is on ?????
The house was cool , the frig was totally empty and cleaned and I even had the laundry going. Later she went into the grocery store and now we are getting back to normal. Time for me to clean my camping gear and pack it all away for later and next time I hope it's only for a camping trip.
Later we found out why Rogers lawn mower went swimming , we got over 10 inches of rain in a very short time. The lawn mower is being rejuvenated and repaired from it's ordeal.
Chuck..............
We sat the storm out and only had a messy yard to deal with when everything cleared. The neighbors trees decided to drop a lot of branches , twigs , leaves and anything else they could throw our way. We found out later that even half of their largest tree tried to trespass into our yard but did not make it over the chain link fence. It had to cover most of their back yard to get to ours and it was not the tallest branches that broke.
At the start we could hear branches scooting across the roof. Then as the wind switched from the North East to East even more branches. Finally from the South East that helped to clear even more branches off the roof. The the South wind cleaned all the rest off the roof and piled it on the north side of the house and the porches roof.
All the time we had power , it would flicker but stay on. Then the crushing blow which did our power in. The wind switched from the South and out went the power. 3:00 A.M. Monday morning ....DARKNESS.
The dark and power outage went from 3:00 A.M. Monday morning to 2:30 A.M. Saturday morning.
Out came the camping lanterns , candle lantern and a few other battery powered lanterns we have here for power outages.
Monday morning , surveying the damage in the area and cleaning our yard. The neighbor across the street picked up branches in his yard and then went to retrieved his lawn mower. He placed it under some bushes in the back corner of his yard. BIG MISTAKE. It's a downward slope from his house and all he could see of his lawn mower was the handle sticking out of a newly formed lake in the lower portion of his back yard.
To make a long story shorter , I got my mower out and mowed the back yard of my place. then went over and mowed his front yard and then my front yard. A fresh mower yard helps to take away from all the destruction and devastation in the area.
Everyone has cleaned up most of the area and the road is lined with large plies of brush , tree branches , limbs and even trunks of trees. The rest of the standing timber is a little sparse on vegetation and really does not offer a lot of shade , anymore.
Neighbors do help neighbors. I loaned a couple of my camping lanterns to a neighbor down the street. Later on he brought me a couple of bags of ice which were really appreciated since I did not have any or power. his ice came into being because his neighbor ran a extension cord over to their refrigerator and ice maker.
Two days later the wife had the heat get to her and the neighbor across the street invited her over to there place. So she went across the street and stayed with them ( Ed & Roger ) since they were the 1st to get any power back on . Till the rest of us would get any power there home was quite popular.
Yours truly stayed home and was sort of camping on the back porch. If you can call it camping when the two homes to the East have generators running , the two homes to the West have generators running and you are in the middle with open windows and a battery powered ( 2 D Cells ) SMALL camping fan and a candle lantern. The other lanterns were to bright so I used the candle one , might as well enjoy life , Right ?
Cooking meals on a camping stove and finding ice at stores to keep in the cooler on the back porch. Finally Friday night some restaurants were open so the wife and I went to the local IHop and got their triple decked BLT with a ton of fries on the side and one nice spear of a Dill Pickle , Drinks were ICE Tea ( Unsweetened ) . For me it was a pleasure to sit in a air conditioned place , eat a meal I did not have to cook on a single burner stove.
Got home to a open and rater warm , almost hot home , I keep telling my self it's not that hot , Nope it's not that hot , Right ...Your fooling no one. We never lost water pressure so it was a lot of COLD showers for me , the hot water is gas heated but a hot shower was not on my agenda for the last 6 days.
Hurricanes , Windy , loud , driving rain and strong winds at the start. Since we were on the dirty side of the storm we had tornado threats during all of the storm till the eye moved north of us , then just wind and rain. That runs for a while and then things start to quiet down.
Now comes the generators , Chain Saws , Vehicles , Loud People and most any other noise you might think of.
The reason Ed & Roger managed to have power restored quickly is that the power company did the small repair jobs to get more folks on line.
My side of the road was fed by a feeder line that went down and that is one of the last lines to get repaired. Makes sense to me , they can do all of the repairs on the dead line to individual homes safely. Then repair the feeder line and when they are done flip the switch and everyone off that feeder line gets power.
2:30 A.M. Saturday Morning I woke up because there was a light on. Dam !!!! That's the Dinning room light we left on so we could tell when the power came back on. Up and around the house closing windows and securing the place , turning on the AC to get some cool air and just rejoicing.
I wounder how long it will be till she sees the power is back on over here ?
Saturday morning about 7:00 A.M. YEP... I get a phone call , the phone is working again. The power is on ?????
The house was cool , the frig was totally empty and cleaned and I even had the laundry going. Later she went into the grocery store and now we are getting back to normal. Time for me to clean my camping gear and pack it all away for later and next time I hope it's only for a camping trip.
Later we found out why Rogers lawn mower went swimming , we got over 10 inches of rain in a very short time. The lawn mower is being rejuvenated and repaired from it's ordeal.
Chuck..............