Aftermath - Monday Night

I walked the dog around thru my neighborhood last night. Our subdivision fared very well and all the neighbors I spoke to were counting their blessings.

Just about every home, has piles of leaves and branches already out for the trash collection. A few had bigger limbs and some with weaker trees had some larger branches broken which most were out cutting down and piling up . Two homes in my neighborhood had small trees or limbs fall on their homes, again majorly with no damage to speak of.

The first block had no power on both sides of the road. My first thought on seeing the open windows, was that they were simply enjoying the breezes as there was till a strong breeze about 15-20 MPH, but talking to neighbors along the way I realized they had no power on that street, and one side of the next one over, as well as the far street.

It appears a transformer blew late Sunday night. We remember hearing a loud explosion about that time, and all our lights went off for about 30 seconds and came back on. At the time, I remember thinking that was a loud explosion for a light bulb. Our street light had gone out so I thought that was the noise, but found out instead it was their transformer.

As I looked around, I just really felt an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. In our area we are all the highest point of our county. Our city has done an excellent job of keeping storm drains open and running so there was no problem here with flooding as in the rest of the county.

I ended up talking to several neighbors without power. Most had moved their frozen things across the street to their neighbors. I went home and got out some of the blocks of ice I had frozen to share with them.

In a hurricane they tell you to save water, get batteries for radios and stock up on canned goods and things that you can eat that do not require refrigeration. I bought several cases of bottled water. Knowing how I would have to be in bad shape to drink hot water, I took it all and put into a big freezer we had thinking I would at least have cold water. I was grateful that I did not have to use it for me, but figured I could take soem of it and give to those without ice.

It looks as if they may not have power for days or a week. The power company said priority is given first to emergency centers, next to blocks where they have 500-1000 people out, then smaller groups from there. Since there are only mabye 50 -60 homes in this block, it may be next week fro them.

Florida at this time of year is still hot and muggy and no time to be without air conditioning. I'm praying they will have power restored soon. Meantime, if you happen to be in Florida too and see people effected by this take them some ice and cold things to drink. They would appreciate it. That is one small thing you can do to help.