Bloggin' With Bitchass

Don't Let The Door Hit You In The Ass, Ike...

Well, I survived the hurricane, not completely untouched, but I'm still here. If anybody is wondering, I'll relate to you what I experienced as the storm came and went. Before I start though, I want to say that I was extremely lucky compared to a whole lot of other poor souls who lost way more than I did. My heart goes out to those people and their families.

On Friday afternoon, I finished boarding up my one boardable window at the front of the house, and making sure I had my flashlights and extra batteries handy. I placed my candles where I could easily find them. I fueled up my Coleman lantern, and also screwed a new propane cylinder on my other lantern. The weather at that point was still very calm, with an occasional breeze.

The clouds started rolling in during the late afternoon, but not a drop of rain fell until much later. As evening fell, the wind started to pick up, and I decided to make dinner, using stuff from the freezer, since I knew that the power might go out during the storm and allow the frozen food to thaw out. And here's where I made my first two big mistakes. I had already gassed up the car, but I forgot to go out and fill my coolers with ice, and I also forgot to test my radio on battery power.

After dinner, I spent some time on the Internet, thinking that the storm probably wouldn't get bad until 11PM or maybe midnight. I browsed around a bit, getting periodic weather reports from Krissi, and I started to leave a few messages with people telling them that if my Internet went out, I might not be online for a few days. I never got all of my messages sent out. At around 9PM the power started to flicker, and so I decided to turn off the puter and unplug anything electronic except for the old TV in my bedroom. I busied myself by watching storm coverage on TV until I lost my cable signal at 9:40. At that point, I went out to the living room, parked myself on the couch, and turned on my radio, which worked fine as long as it was plugged into the wall.

That's how I spent the time up until about midnight... lying on the couch, listening to storm reports, and listening to the wind getting stronger and stronger outside. Then, a little past midnight, the lights went out...

I lit a couple of my candles and switched my radio over to battery power, but even though the batteries were brand new, the radio stayed silent. And so I laid there in silence, listening to the many strange noises outside. I have a fireplace with a metal firebox and metal chimney. During normal rainstorms, I use the chimney cap as an indicator of how hard the rain is falling outside, but on this night, the whole fireplace got involved, as the wind would blow down the chimney and make the damper and the metal walls of the fireplace clatter and bang. The wind was really blowing hard outside, and every so often, I'd hear the sound of electrical wires shorting together and the power transformers going out. I kept hearing the most disconcerting cracking sounds outside, and I didn't have any idea if it was from trees going down or something else. And so I laid there on the couch, wishing I could just fall asleep and when I woke up, all this would be over. Not a chance...

While I was lying there, I suddenly remembered a tiny little AM/FM/Weather radio that I had gotten sent to me as a free gift from somewhere. I searched for it using a flashlight, and fortunately found it in a drawer. I popped a couple of AAA batteries in it, and lo and behold, sounds poured forth! At the time I got it, I remember thinking how cheap and useless this little plastic toy was, but the little bastard worked like a charm, and kept me informed of what was going on around the area until the power came back on. I apologize profusely to Mr Cheapass Radio.

As I laid there, listening to the radio and the steadily increasing wind and scary noises outside, I was able to finally drift off to sleep for a while.. It couldn't have been for very long, because I woke up to see the lights were back on again, and when I checked my watch, I saw it was only about 2:15. It had really started to rain hard, and I heard them say on the radio that Ike had just come ashore on Galveston at 2:10. I knew that since I was about 40 miles from Galveston, I still had about 2 hours to go until the strongest winds got to my area. I got up and looked out of the front door, and all I could see was horizontal rain, and a ghostly image of trees and bushes bending sideways. As I watched, I saw a couple of bright green flashes of light, accompanied by the now familiar sound of wires shorting out, and out went the lights again. I closed the door and made my way back to my little oasis of candlelight.

The next couple of hours were probably the worst part of the night. I started to hear my windows flexing inside their frames, and I started to wonder if they were gonna blow into the house or some airborne objects might crash into them and send flying glass my way. I have a small house, but the entire back wall consists mostly of 3 large windows and a sliding glass door, and the wind was blowing directly at them. I was wishing that I had been able to board them up, but it was too late now... I made another big mistake here... I continued to lay on the couch, right where any broken glass would go. Luckily, the windows held, and I didn't have to pay for being stupid.

While I waited for the worst part of the storm to arrive, all I could think of was, "If this is only a Category 2 hurricane, I don't ever want to have to sit through anything stronger." I don't mind telling you that I was scared and more than a little bit worried. One thing that helped me a lot was the knowledge that I was far enough inland and at a high enough elevation where I didn't have to worry about the storm surge or any serious flooding. As I laid there wondering just how strong the wind was gonna get when the eyewall passed over me, I mercifully fell asleep. The next thing I remember is drifting awake just around 6AM and realizing that the wind didn't sound quite as strong outside as it had just a few hours ago.

I got up and grabbed a flashlight and patrolled around the house, looking for any broken windows or water leaks, but I didn't see anything. As I passed the spare bedroom, the beam of the flashlight startled poor little Vash, who had been quiet all through the storm, and he now began cheeping loudly. I talked to him for a few minutes until he quieted back down. I went back to the couch and laid back down, waiting for first light so I could see something outside. I'm not afraid of the dark by any means, but having to endure 6 to 8 hours of this crap without a break, and not being able to see anything outside, had me wishing hard for daylight to arrive.

Finally, after drifting in and out of sleep for a while longer, I became aware that it was starting to look lighter behind the closed curtains, and that there were lengthening periods of calm between the gusts of wind. As I drifted in and out, I was vaguely aware of the sound of the radio announcers periodically giving the time, and at one point I remember hearing them say it was 10 something, and so I decided to get up and take a look outside...

Lunch hour is over, so I'll tell you the rest later.

little bitchass