*whew* What a long haul this one was. Shorter in overall time frame but packing much more of a punch. Shortly after yesterday's entry, we bundled up and went out into the weather, walking around the apartment complex and experiencing some of the wild, powerful wind for ourselves. We got soaked in a matter of moments. I brought my camera - safely encased in a studry Zip-Lock bag - and took some photos (I'll work on uploading them later). By the time we came back inside, our power was out.
It was about 4:30pm.
Neither of us had really eaten anything so far for the day and now we had no way of cooking anything. We're not allowed to have grills (fire hazard in apartments), we don't have any portable or canned heat source and of course, no microwave or oven. And when we went to bed Saturday night, the storm wasn't coming our way; we weren't prepared for it's arrival Sunday morning.
We waited for a little while for things to calm down and around 5:45pm, went out in search of something - anything - that might be a) open b) have power and c) have food. The radio stations were airing news reports so we were able to get a little update on the situation. Hundreds of thousands of residents were without power and winds were expected to pick up as the back side of the storm came our way. A drive to a neighboring city revealed that unlike everyone around us for miles, here was an area with power. Even better? A Dunkn' Donuts was open. (And slammed busy.) We parked, waited in line and feasted on two bacon, egg and cheese crossaints. I also got a hot tea which was fabulous, since I was still chilled to the bone from our walk earlier. Massive thanks and kudos go out to the large staff that showed up to open and serve a long line of people in the calm of the storm yesterday.
Warmed up, a hot meal in us, we heard that the Super Wal-Mart across the road had opened, so we headed that way to pick up some supplies. We got a small phone (our only one was cordless which of course won't work without power), some bread and snacks. They were out of any canned heat for cooking and there were no radios to be had. We also picked up some batteries in hopes we could get our small clock radio to run off it's battery backup (which turned out not to work.) We had no way of hearing the news or keeping up with what was going on without power.
No where else to go and nothing to do with the winds still high and the rain picking back up, we headed home. Our area was still without power. We opened up the sliding glass door and pulled the screen closed, opened some windows, lit some candles and began to wait. I was able to reach my mother on her cell phone and she was without power too. Worse, her home phone didn't seem to be working either.
You never realize how dark it gets until you don't have power. And just how much you take the electricity for granted until you don't have it. While it may be nice to have the option to turn off the lights some times, I can assure you, it's MUCH nicer to be able to turn them on.
It was late - probably about 11:30pm - when we ventured out again. There's only so much of sitting around in the pitch black you can take. No one was offering news on the radio at this point, so we didn't really know what the situation was. We went back to Super Wal-Mart and managed to find some flashlights. It was just nice to get in the air conditioning and well-lit store for a change. Having no power can be both depressing and repressive. It's frustrating not being able to see properly when you want or need to.
Got back and power was still out. At this point, Love decided to try to get some rest. It was hot and muggy and sticky out despite the winds blowing still pretty consistantly. The heat would have been unbearable without that wind.
I sat up for a little while longer and read my book by flashlight. Finally, around 2am, I decided to try to get some sleep. I wasn't really tired, but I was hoping that it would help pass the time and bring daylight sooner. Sleep was fitful from noises, heat and general anxiety.
At about 4:45am I heard a loud "THUNK" and suddenly, everything turned back on. The light I had left on in the living room shone through the bedroom door and the Gamecube that my Love was playing before we went for a walk started playing the opening theme music. I was overjoyed. I ran around, closed the windows, cranked the air and turned on some fans to help cool things down. A quick check of the tv and I discovered the cable had gone down some time during the power outage. Power was down for about twelve hours.
I was able to finally fall back asleep and sleep on through morning.
When I got up, we still didn't have any cable. But I was able to pull in one channel on the small tv in the bedroom to catch most of the noon news. My mother called to check up on us. Her power had come on the night before - it was on before she went to bed. She couldn't believe ours took until the wee hours of the morning. We were lucky though. There are still hundreds of thousands without power at this point. With no estimate of when things will be back up.
Pinellas County
214,095 people or 40% of total customers affected.
214,095 of 523,718 Progress Energy customers without power.
Pasco County
103,622 people or 48% of total customers affected.
7,000 of 12,228 teco customers without power.
62,000 of 116,645 progress energy customers without power.
34,622 of 85,893 cooperative customers without power.
Hillsborough County
167,003 people or 30% of total customers affected.
167,000 of 547,471 TECO customers without power.
Today, we went over to our new apartment complex. (We have officially decided we're moving the weekend of October 15th.) We needed to get some measurements and talk to them about some final arrangements. On our drive, we found several businesses without power. Places that previously had power were now down. It was very intermitent and scattered. A McDonalds we stopped at was down as was an Eckards Drug Store. It was weird. You could see empolyees sitting in the doorways, just waiting for things to come back up.
There was much more wind damage this time around. Debris everywhere. Last night, on our drive home, we saw a Hess station's awning over the pumps blown clean over. Signs were blown in all directions and knocked down. Branches down and even some trees uprooted. Billboards torn to shreds, flags in tatters and some signs knocked over. We had much more wind this time around then the previous storms - and for sustained periods plus gusts. Prior, it was mainly just some gusts but no real sustained winds.
When we got back home, it was about 5:30pm and the cable tv was back on. Though the internet wasn't working. I called them and they reported there were still outages in our area so they weren't suprised that some things were working but not others. It came up around 9pm and I've been able to make my first connections to check up on things, get my email and read messages of support everyone sent. Thanks guys for that by the way. *smiles*
All-in-all, we're doing ok. A rough, rough time of it but things are coming back to normal. The only thing that's bad is we had to spend money on things like a phone, food, batteries, flashlights, etc. and it leaves us with literally nothing but pocket change until Friday. We were already really tight on cash as it was and now we're dead broke. And much of our food in the fridge and freezer has gone bad from the 12 hours without power (milk, eggs, meat in freezer, etc.), so we don't have much in the way of meals for the week. Not sure how that's going to work. At the moment, that's my biggest worry. We're just really maxed out from the unexpected expenses. It wouldn't be so bad if we could eat what we have around the house, but we basically have to chuck it all and start again. *sighs*
Anyway, that's the update. Thankfully, Jeanne is gone and life can start getting back to normal again. I'm happy it's over.
~ castles of sand by Memory and Dream
at 9/27/2004 09:31:25 PM ~
~
