Summageddon Part II

So Saturday morning we went over to my mom's house to pick her and up and go forge for breakfast. In trying to get to my mom's house we realized how bad things were. We had to take the back way to my mom's house and many streets we passed were blocked. Most of the main roads (in a neighborhood, not expressway or 6 lane road) were impassable due to trees or downed lines. It looked like a war zone.

snapped pole, where the car is parked there was a tree, taken after cleanup

a tree (see stump) broke fence and fell on a house

I didn't take too many pictures of the damage that first morning, I was in too much shock and without electricity, my phone battery was not full power and with that my only means on communication I tried to not use it. 
When we were driving through my mother's neighborhood we heard a helicopter and noticed that it was following the transmission lines, we then realized that this storm was a lot worse then we thought.

helicopter flying over the transmission lines looking for damage

We went to the opposite end of town to find breakfast.  It was a mad house, the main road with all of the restaurants and shopping was also one of the few areas that had power.  Chick-fil-a was a zoo.

Chick-fil-a the happening place Saturday morning after the storm

Though you can't tell from the picture, the line wrapped all around the store.  It took 30 minutes to order and get food.  After eating we dropped Jeff off at his store, he had power, dropped my mom back at her house, and headed over to a friend's house who had power to play.  It was during this playdate that started hearing reports that our city would not have full restoration until the following Saturday.  I was floored, a whole week without power and the temperatures were suppose to be close to 100 every day. I was devastated. 
After a few hours of play, the kids were exhausted so I took them home and headed home to pick up some stuff before I went to downtown to our store to hang out for the rest of the evening.  The kids fell asleep in the car and fortunately continued sleeping after I transferred them to a pallet in the store. 

afternoon nap

During my brief stop at home I opened up my fridge to see what I could transfer to the store's mini fridge, I was devastated to see that the temperature in the fridge was already 60 degrees.  It had not even been 24 hours since the storm had hit and the food in my fridge was already too warm.  I opened up the freezer and discovered that most of the food in there was also defrosted.  I was able to grab some chicken breasts in the back that weren't defrosted and we ended up eating them for dinner that night.
After spending the late afternoon at the store we headed home for dinner.  The house felt pretty cool inside, but once we started opening and closing the door with dinner prep it got warm pretty quickly.  My mom and her dog came over to spend the night with us since I didn't want her in her house alone with no electricity.  We tried sleeping, but it was extremely hot and uncomfortable.  My allergies were bothering me and I was extremely exhausted from no sleep the night before and I was desperate to get some sleep.  At 3 am we packed up the kids and headed downtown to our store.  As soon as I laid down on my sleeping bag at the shop I fell asleep, I usually don't sleep well on a floor, but the exhaustion and cool air put me right to sleep. 
Sunday morning we got up and Jeff headed to the other side of town for bagels.  After eating breakfast we headed home and played with the slip'n'slide (our power outage lifesaver), went to Target for lunch and get sandwich items for dinner, and had dinner at the store.  My allergies were awful despite taking as much medication as possible and strangely it was worse at the store, so we once again headed home to spend the evening and sleep.

the best $20 spent this summer

Sunday evening we saw our first power crew begin working on the lines in front of the hospital.  We were excited thinking that maybe they work through the night to restore power, but we were disappointed when they packed up and left at 8 pm saying they would be back the following morning at 7. 

the power crews putting up new poles

We walked back home realizing that power restoration was going to take days, but we were thankful that we finally saw power crews working because we hadn't seen a power truck in the 48 hours since the storm began. 
Once again, we tried to sleep, but it was miserably hot in the house.  Jeff decided to try and find something that could generate electricity at Walmart.  I should note: generators were not an option, they were sold out on Saturday and you couldn't find a generator within 5 states.  Jeff bought a blowup mattress for us to sleep on in the living room and an inverter that hooked up to the car battery and allowed us to run one fan.  That one fan made a huge difference and despite being extremely congested I was able to get a few more hours of sleep that night.
So 3 night and 2 full days without power and more to go.

Summageddon Part 1

I thought I was safe from natural disasters in my little area of Virginia.  Before last fall we never had earthquakes, we were not badly impacted by hurricanes, we are too hilly for tornadoes and there are no volcanoes anywhere.  I am not rattled because we have a natural disaster of our own that comes with little warning and leaves devastation like a hurricane, a derecho. It came without warning, well about 10 minutes, if even that, and left us without electricity for days.
It all started Monday, June 25, it was cool and comfortable with temperatures in the upper 70's.  As the week progressed the temperatures got hotter, by Friday, June 29, temperatures were close to 100 and it was HOT.  We had a normal Friday afternoon and evening.  Jeff had an art show at the shop and got home about 9.  I was online looking at different sites for a new bathing suit.  For some reason we decided to check the weather.  We saw a thunderstorm about an hour away and I complained the storms always seem to happen when we were trying to get the kids asleep.  I should note, at the time there was no severe thunderstorm warming.  About 5 minutes later, I heard what I thought was rain and asked Jeff to go make sure the windows in my car were rolled up.  He opened the door to go out and were hit with hurricane force winds, we were shocked, how did this storm that was an hour away already here?  A few minutes later we were in the dark, and the power was out.  The wind was blowing like a hurricane, we noticed the tree across the street had fallen into the road.  We saw a bit of lightning, but heard no thunder.  We kept expecting it to start raining, but it never did.  We also kept expecting a horrible thunderstorm to come, but it never did, it was just super strong winds that kept going and going (well for about 30 minutes).  The kids of course were freaking out so we got them calm and eventually asleep on the sofa (the living room is the opposite side of the house of the winds).  My sister called at one point freaking out because of the storm, I tried to calm her down.  I also tried to get a hold of my mom but cell phone service was spotty.  I was also frustrated that my iphone would not get any internet so I had to find batteries and listen to weatherband on a radio.  Eventually everything calmed down and we went to bed.  The next morning we were still out of power and Lance and I went walking to see the destruction.  When I walked out onto the main road I had no idea how devastating the storm was until I saw this:

I know it just looks like a tree, but this tree is blocking 4 lanes of traffic, took out a traffic light, and pulled down 4 power poles.

same tree, just different view

what use to the be the stoplight

the broken power poles the tree pulled down

Power pole trying to stay upright

After seeing the destruction I thought we might be out of power for a day or two, and since we live so close to the hospital I felt confident our power would be back on in no time, I was so wrong.