It seems like I’ve been struck with a bad case of sporadic blogging recently. A combination of lack of time and…okay, just a lack of time, has kept me from imparting my useless nattering upon the masses. By masses, of course, I mean the approximately 100 people who trip the “unique visitors” counter when I post a new missive on my blog spot.
The weekend storm in our area prompted me to come out of semi-retirement from blogging. It was an amazing and breathtaking event. (I mean the storm, not my coming out of retirement.)
Last week at this time I was looking forward to a relaxing three-day weekend from work. Once again in the middle of rehearsals for an Opera House show, I allowed many of my obligations to stack up and was planning to reduce that ominous stack considerably, beginning first thing Saturday morning.
Then Friday happened.
I didn’t experience it first hand, but I was on my way home from work when it hit. I could see the big green wall over Tyler. I was traveling north on Highway 91 when the front arrived at my Blazer, along with a strange sensation that it was going
to roll me right into the ditch. I pulled over to the side of the road, but winds stronger than I had ever experienced had me hoping over the span of the next 10 minutes that I would remain upright.
When I was finally able to proceed, I became more and more concerned with the state of the place I call home. Cell phone service was spotty at best, and Kathy (in the basement at Miller Legal) and I were somewhat able to communicate with each other in limited fashion. I got a message that I was supposed to swing by our house to make sure it was still there and to check on the kitty. It was over an hour, however, before I could get to town. I was turned around on Highway 14 due to downed power lines. I tried going north on Highway 23, but power lines and a rolled semi truck turned me around again.
I went south to Ruthton and was again stopped on the south end of Tyler. Finally I found a way in from the west and made it to downtown before having to park and walk the last block home. I was stunned at the amount of damage that surrounded me.
While we were thankful that we were all safe (although Torii was one skittish kitty after riding out the storm alone at home), and our house only had damage to a few windows and shingles, we were overwhelmed by the fact we had four trees lying in our yard. We weren’t sure where to start.
And we were among the luckiest residents in town.
Assuming that most of the equipment in town was engaged in bigger emergencies than our own, we waited and mulled our options. We kept ourselves busy by moving all the contents of our freezer to some friends who had power in Marshall (Thanks Chris and Michele). We filled our spare time bailing water out of our sump hole and lugging it to the sink across the basement. You wouldn’t believe how many five-gallon pails it takes to make the water level go down a half inch!
Somewhere around mid-afternoon we had a gift sent straight to us from heaven, in the form of nine gracious volunteers and a few pieces of equipment, large and small. A couple of chain saws, a backhoe and a skid loader descended upon our back yard and accomplished what an hour earlier seemed impossible. The crew: Darrell and Bernice Oerter, Todd and Nicole Denney, Brice Denney, Tyson Nielsen, Derrick Stage, Wally Lipinski and neighbor Don Mulloy pitched in and cleared our yard. I was humbled at the good will that was bestowed upon us. Somehow I got through thanking them all without standing there and blubbering, but not sure how I pulled it off.
The town was filled with Good Samaritan stories like that. Fire departments and electrical crews from all our neighboring towns were there to give up their holiday weekends for us. How do you say thanks to that?
We got our power back Sunday afternoon. After the sound of volunteer chainsaws, there is not much better than the sound of a sump pump sucking water out of your basement. It was sweet.
If there is a slacker in the area it would have to be (no surprise here) Mediacom. Six nights later we still have no cable or internet service. Anyone who knows me would have to wonder how I have survived. I’m usually connected around the clock. With intermittent cell service, my Droid phone occasionally had enough reception to get an infrequent glimpse at the outside world.
Near as I can see Mediacom has put in a couple of grueling six hour days. When Kathy called them to let them know we were still without service, the recording said that they were not aware of any outages in our area. Now THAT is customer service. What makes me even MORE frustrated is that when I actually did see them in town, they had a trailer holding a spool of coaxial cable parked on my back yard, right next to the pile of severed cable that once led to our house. That was two days ago.
I’m sure they will refund our money for being without cable or internet for a week.
Fortunately I’m still buoyed by the elevated mood that was infused by the good will of others, so I haven’t snapped…yet.
All-in-all I came out of the weekend thankful for our health, thankful that the damage wasn’t worse and thankful that (outside of cable and internet providers) we can count on the selfless kindness of our neighbors far and near.
The weekend storm in our area prompted me to come out of semi-retirement from blogging. It was an amazing and breathtaking event. (I mean the storm, not my coming out of retirement.)
Last week at this time I was looking forward to a relaxing three-day weekend from work. Once again in the middle of rehearsals for an Opera House show, I allowed many of my obligations to stack up and was planning to reduce that ominous stack considerably, beginning first thing Saturday morning.
Then Friday happened.
I didn’t experience it first hand, but I was on my way home from work when it hit. I could see the big green wall over Tyler. I was traveling north on Highway 91 when the front arrived at my Blazer, along with a strange sensation that it was going
to roll me right into the ditch. I pulled over to the side of the road, but winds stronger than I had ever experienced had me hoping over the span of the next 10 minutes that I would remain upright.When I was finally able to proceed, I became more and more concerned with the state of the place I call home. Cell phone service was spotty at best, and Kathy (in the basement at Miller Legal) and I were somewhat able to communicate with each other in limited fashion. I got a message that I was supposed to swing by our house to make sure it was still there and to check on the kitty. It was over an hour, however, before I could get to town. I was turned around on Highway 14 due to downed power lines. I tried going north on Highway 23, but power lines and a rolled semi truck turned me around again.
I went south to Ruthton and was again stopped on the south end of Tyler. Finally I found a way in from the west and made it to downtown before having to park and walk the last block home. I was stunned at the amount of damage that surrounded me.
While we were thankful that we were all safe (although Torii was one skittish kitty after riding out the storm alone at home), and our house only had damage to a few windows and shingles, we were overwhelmed by the fact we had four trees lying in our yard. We weren’t sure where to start.
And we were among the luckiest residents in town.
Assuming that most of the equipment in town was engaged in bigger emergencies than our own, we waited and mulled our options. We kept ourselves busy by moving all the contents of our freezer to some friends who had power in Marshall (Thanks Chris and Michele). We filled our spare time bailing water out of our sump hole and lugging it to the sink across the basement. You wouldn’t believe how many five-gallon pails it takes to make the water level go down a half inch!
Somewhere around mid-afternoon we had a gift sent straight to us from heaven, in the form of nine gracious volunteers and a few pieces of equipment, large and small. A couple of chain saws, a backhoe and a skid loader descended upon our back yard and accomplished what an hour earlier seemed impossible. The crew: Darrell and Bernice Oerter, Todd and Nicole Denney, Brice Denney, Tyson Nielsen, Derrick Stage, Wally Lipinski and neighbor Don Mulloy pitched in and cleared our yard. I was humbled at the good will that was bestowed upon us. Somehow I got through thanking them all without standing there and blubbering, but not sure how I pulled it off.
The town was filled with Good Samaritan stories like that. Fire departments and electrical crews from all our neighboring towns were there to give up their holiday weekends for us. How do you say thanks to that?
We got our power back Sunday afternoon. After the sound of volunteer chainsaws, there is not much better than the sound of a sump pump sucking water out of your basement. It was sweet.
If there is a slacker in the area it would have to be (no surprise here) Mediacom. Six nights later we still have no cable or internet service. Anyone who knows me would have to wonder how I have survived. I’m usually connected around the clock. With intermittent cell service, my Droid phone occasionally had enough reception to get an infrequent glimpse at the outside world.
Near as I can see Mediacom has put in a couple of grueling six hour days. When Kathy called them to let them know we were still without service, the recording said that they were not aware of any outages in our area. Now THAT is customer service. What makes me even MORE frustrated is that when I actually did see them in town, they had a trailer holding a spool of coaxial cable parked on my back yard, right next to the pile of severed cable that once led to our house. That was two days ago.
I’m sure they will refund our money for being without cable or internet for a week.
Fortunately I’m still buoyed by the elevated mood that was infused by the good will of others, so I haven’t snapped…yet.
All-in-all I came out of the weekend thankful for our health, thankful that the damage wasn’t worse and thankful that (outside of cable and internet providers) we can count on the selfless kindness of our neighbors far and near.