By the power of LUS...
Pretend I was He-Man for a second there while I said it - and if that doesn't make sense, then just ignore me. After a bit over 2 days, we finally got power back last night around 7:45. We were in the "lucky" 10 percent of Lafayette that didn't have power Wednesday. (This is now down to 2% according to our utility provider.)
All in all, this hurricane was a heck of a lot less scarier than Rita was, but that may be that this one took place during the day, when I could still see what was going on. There was still plenty of nervous moments. While we have cut down all the big trees in front of our house, our neighbors still have some very tall, very old trees all around us.
We did indeed have a tree fall, but it was a small one of ours on the side of the house. I'm guessing there must have been a tunnel type effect with the wind as I would have thought the tree would have been protected by the two hours. It fell right on our fence, and scraped the side of our roof. The fence is quite old, and we honestly want to get rid of it. I'm shocked that it is even holding up the tree still since in some parts it is rotting away. But my wife who is very much on the ball was actually on the phone with the insurance company during the hurricane and we were told to have it fixed and just send them the bill.
The only other loss was our food and perishable medicines, which was quite a bit. We have a family of 5 so the food loss was huge, but, surprisingly, our insurance covers that as well. So my wife simply made a list and took pictures while emptying the fridge.
The only thing not quite right yet is the pool. It was a green swamp immediately after the storm. Here is an iPhone pic:
We cleaned it out a bit but it will take more work before we can actually swim in it again. (And in Louisiana, our kids can swim till November sometimes.)
So I took some videos using the Flip recorder. Let me save you some time now and say they aren't too terribly exciting, but you do get to see the wind and rain gradually pick up over time. You also get to see the neighbor's tree split in half and resting on another tree next to it, which is pretty freaky.
Anyway, I want to thank everyone who sent well wishes/prayers etc. It was appreciated. Me - I want to send a big thank you to Willis Carrier.
Lastly - I got some good questions the last few days (what, you guys don't read about the weather?? ;) but I ask that folks give me a few days to respond.
Comments
Now comes Ike and he's looking strong, might have relatives staying with me if they have to evacuate south FL.
DK
I watched your video clips - pretty cool. As someone who has survived a few tornadoes I must agree that the whole power outage thing after the storm really does suck. On a related note it also looks like we both studied at the Blair Witch Film Academy.
Glad you guys are ok! I have a family of five too and that is a major pain when you have to restock 400 dollars of groceries. At least insurance will help out.
1) The US Mail actually went out on Tuesday and Wednesday. I couldn't believe it when I saw the mail man driving down my road on Tuesday. I mean even though things were calm then, there were -many- road closures.
2) I had a UPS package that was to be delivered on Wednesday. I certainly didn't expect it, but I found this note in the tracking info pretty funny:
Delay in delivery due to external factors
Yes, external factors as in a big honkin' hurricane. ;) (To their credit, the package is arriving today, all of one day late.)
http://lafayetteprofiber.com/Blog/2008/09/thanks-f...
http://http//www.vertabase.com/cfpm
Not to take away from you ordeal, but last Monday, my wife gave birth to our forth child. The three boys now have a sister. Her name is Emerald Skye. Needless to say, I'm extreamy happy.