Monday, August 29, 2005
Hurricane Surprise
Thursday right before 5pm, we heard that Hurricane Katrina had shifted south and would affect Miami more than originally thought. We all left work & drove home in the drastically changing conditions. Some of the intersection signals were already out, which is a bad thing in a city where people don't follow rules. I made it home safe & sound though & began watching the news with Steve. Not only had the storm dipped south, but seemed to have a new south western route. Moments later, the winds were howling and the flood rains were coming down. By 7pm, our power was out. I gathered up flashlights and lit candles, while Steve found his hand-held battery powered tv. We watched for a while, but decided sleep was a better idea. We curled up on the couch, because the wind and rain was pounding harder on the bedroom windows.
The eye ended up passing right over us and we got over 12" of rain that night. In the morning, we woke up to discover that our street was flooded. The water came half way up our driveway. We also had a few palm limbs (frans) that had fallen off of our trees. In the house, we found a pool of water in our guest bedroom. There was no water damage though, so I cleaned it up quickly. We still didn't have power and soon discovered that our cell phones and telephones weren't working. Steve couldn't get service on his and my battery was dead. As for the land lines, both of our phones need power to work. I guess we should have thought of that before and bought an old fashioned one.
Later on, the water in the front subsided so we ventured out. Most of the houses in our neighborhood are missing quite a few roof shingles, fences are down & trees are everywhere (even on top of cars and houses). We drove over to our friend, Amanda's house and saw that a big tree in her yard had fallen. Fortunately, it didn't land on the house or in the road. She decided to join us on our little venture and we found a bagel place that was open. We didn't need to eat there, but it felt good to be out.
That evening, we were sitting in our hot house wondering when the electricity would be back on. The news announced that about 650,000 homes in Miami had lost power and that they were hoping to get the majority of those reasons fixed by Tuesday. We started complaining about how hot it was going to be & that the food in our refrigerator was going to go bad. All of the sudden, ours popped back on. We were so lucky. I immediately called Amanda & invited her stay with us. She has been with us ever since.
Our cable is out (not complaining), so we had a relaxing weekend watching DVDs & hanging out in the a/c. By the way, many of the grocery stores still don't have power & their food has been destroyed. I called the doctor first thing this morning to make sure the ultrasound is still on & I am happy to report it IS!
my name
Husband:
Steve
Baby: Lexi (born Jan 26th)
This blog is like a journal for me. It is also a way for my friends to keep tabs on me.
For people who don't know me, I come from a big family (3 brothers & 1 sister). We moved around a LOT, so I am not really from one particular place. I like to call Katy, Texas my home though.
Recent news, my Dad & Mother-in-Law were diagnosed with Terminal Cancer in April/May of 2005. My dad passed away 5-Dec-05 .
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