Summer 2011, The Earthquake, Hurricane Irene

Summer 2011.
How quickly the months between May through September flew by! I missed my father tremendously, my first summer without him. He used to go with us to the boardwalk every evening. We used to share news stories. Now I see myself reporting to my father the news events that have taken place since he passed away. I often recall his smile and his sense of humor. Often get emotional thinking about him. He loved life and wanted to live longer but this was not to be. Still I mustn’t complain because how lucky for me that he did live as long as he did. But greed is human nature.

My Labor Day Weekend was a grand finale to my summer that was filled with many nice moments in the company of many lovely friends and engaged in several fun activities and even two eventful weeks. First the earthquake on August 23 that I felt around 1:55 pm while I was on a Webinar. The doors to my computer unit rattled and even when I tried stilling them the doors still kept moving. I got a bit spooked, went upstairs only to see my floor-to-ceiling gooseneck lamp in the living room sway, and hear the chimes and the chandelier in the foyer making music. I opened the front door with the intent to flee if things got worse. I saw people across the house on their front lawn but it didn’t look like they had felt the earth move like I had. Within seconds all movement stopped and I cautiously returned to my Webinar only to hear that a few people signed off because of an earthquake in Virginia. I sent a quick note myself saying how I was happy the earthquake wasn’t a figment of my imagination.

On August 26, came dire warning about Hurricane Irene. We were ordered to evacuate. The water across from the house is an inlet from the Atlantic Ocean. Friends called offering shelter. We chose to stay home. My main reason was, if things went wrong around the house I’d be there to correct things that could be corrected to avoid major damage. Secondly, no place on the East Coast was foolproof safe on August 27-28 and finally, the news images of damage in places where Irene that has been downgraded to a category 1 were not catastrophic.

Category 1 downgraded even further Irene still howled on Saturday night and the trees shook violently and I slept very little but prayed a lot. Sunday morning, when I got out of bed, and went into the bathroom and turned on the light, I realized that the power was out. My husband said that it went out at 2 a.m. So, it was about six hours now. I was hopeful that it would return soon. Rarely have we lost power for more than a short while. There was no flooding on the street but soon, the water from the inlet rose and invaded the streets. We wondered if we must block our garage door but with what? Lo, and behold, pretty soon the water receded, too. We have had this situation before too, in the 1980’s during Gloria I think.

We got dressed and went out to check out the damage in the neighborhood. A large tree between our home and the next house had tilted quite a bit pulling the cables with it and a corner piece of our siding, which dangled precariously, but still, stayed attached to the cables. As we walked the streets we ran into others who also had no power. Some broken off tree limbs looked like art work. I picked one interesting-looking piece to decorate my front lawn. On the way, we also used this utilitarian art piece to push the leaves away from the gutters so water could drain. A couple of young mothers pushing their children in strollers informed that we won’t get power back till possibly Friday. This sounded ridiculous. Six days without power? The informer elaborated further that because we did not evacuate as per instruction we were to get power back later than sooner. This just didn’t make any sense. We knocked on our friends’ door to commiserate and gossip-- things we rarely get to do in this fast-paced world. It was fun.

When we returned home, I hoisted my un-commissioned, Irene-provided art work on my lawn and it does look pretty. But one of the worst weather-related experiences I have had was on March 13, 2010. On that day, a heavy thunderstorm knocked down two of my evergreens—one really large and old and the other fairly young and not too large—blew a few shingles off my siding and the basket ball hoop toppled over just missing my cars in the drive way. I don’t recall any serious weather warnings for that one.

In the afternoon we went out looking for lunch. Quite a few eateries were open. We went to Mitchell’s Diner in town. It was a mob scene there. I ran into folks I had not seen in years.

Once I got home I got busy with my editing which I ended just as the sun went down. Still no power, I lit a few candles and after a light dinner, we played Scrabble. Next morning, I decided to take my fridge-borne stuff over to a friend’s in the neighborhood and used her computer to work on my document. Later during my lunch at home, another friend came over to check on me and took me over to her place for a shower. I also transferred some frozen veges to her freezer. Later, I returned home to rescue my home made yogurt in the fridge. Having been locked out unintentionally, of course, by my computer-owning friend, I went o another friend in the next town looking for a home for my yogurt. She also invited me in for dinner later. By now, a nomad, I had several homes willing to shelter me. I was touched.

When I stopped by the house to pick up something, a neighbor informed me that power would be back only on Thursday. Her camper sister-in-law from a nearby town was setting her up with a large ice chest lined with home-made ice packs. I also learned how to make an ice pack and my neighbor loaned me a bunch of large zip lock bags. I brought the demo bag back with me to my friend’s place and left it in her freezer.

To my surprise, power returned on Tuesday around 5 p.m. and over the next two days I retrieved all my stuff and got back on track slowly. Tomorrow: the Labor Day weekend outing.

Ciao!