Isaiais: Lasting Impact
If you flew in to Pensacola today (Pensacola “International” Airport, because one time a plane en route to a Caribbean country had to land here in an emergency) you would look around and say “why is there still so much debris lining the road?”
The answer is: It just goes on and on. The big debris trucks are on their second and third rounds. The electricity guys have to keep going around and fixing things that were less damaged than the urgent outages. The insurance companies are lowballing most adjustments and FEMA is turning down just about everyone. It’s amazing how much insurance doesn’t cover. We had a very expensive “Act of God” to take care of, and we are among the luckier ones, with no water damage and no damage to our residence.
Hurricane recovery is a slow, ugly process.
The busiest roads are clear. Most of us have electricity. Many have air conditioners and water heaters that were hit by surges during the storm and will have to be replaced. Many are dealing with homes that need urgent repairs to be livable – you know, small things like a roof that’s been penetrated, or insulation in the walls that was soaked, or floors that were ruined by standing water. Some have adequate insurance. Most do not.
The experienced ones who can afford to wait, do so. Prices just after a storm fly sky high. Non-local storm chasers come in looking for a fast job. Some accept a down payment and disappear. Some do shoddy work. Occasionally, you find really good, honest people who will work with you and give you your money’s worth.
These are the lessons of Hurricane Isaiais.
Sometimes, It All Comes Together
My friend called me on Sunday, asking if we still needed help with our tree problem. “Yes,” I said; we sure did. She needed work done, had a team that did a great job, and asked if I wanted to meet them. “Yes!” I said, with enthusiasm, and they came over, talked with my husband, and made a deal.
A deal isn’t a deal until it’s done, as I see it. Lots of guys make promises and don’t show up. These guys showed up. They showed up with the right equipment and the right skill sets and experience.
I wasn’t there to watch. I had a commitment at a local elementary school where I volunteer, but AdventureMan kept sending pictures. He was pumped! These guys knew what they were doing. Most of the photos here are his.
While two guys went to work putting ropes on the BIG problem, our tree that ended up horizontal twenty feet off the ground over two fences and three back yards, one man went to work on the heritage pine tree in front, with a dislodged bough that never fell. He made short work of getting it down, and trimmed off a couple others that he thought might prevent a future problem.
Then, he tackled the Holly Tree which has leaned over the years until it was pointing directly at our house.
Finally, the BIG Problem. The tree over three yards. The good news is that our three backyards have large gates, so we could access all three yards. They brought in heavy machinery, and while they worked on different parts of the tree, the machine lifted it and held it up. The fences were undamaged, except for the one we were already preparing to replace before the storm because it was old and rotted.
When the loggers had finished, they saw one more long bough which was damaged, and likely to come down in the next serious wind, so they took that down, too.
These guys were amazing, and the job didn’t even take a full day. They were gone by early afternoon. They cleaned up, stacked all the logs, piled the boughs and blew the patios and drives clear. We were grateful, and impressed.
It wasn’t cheap. It was reasonable. The Pensacola News Journal had run a story on avoiding scammers, and gougers, and listed price ranges for work that were within a reasonable range; ours was right in the center, and they did a lot of extra work and all the clean up. We are so relieved to have the dangerous trees gone, and so relieved to have this great team to help us.
We are also grateful for the help from friends and neighbors, helping us with resources, good recommendations, good information and support as we went through this hurricane.
“I’ve Got This”
So this is a wooo wooo post. Non-believers, this is not required reading.
The other day my granddaughter and I were talking, and she asked my opinion on someone, and I responded frankly. Then I asked her what she thought of me. “You are calm,” she said, and stopped.
I didn’t push her further. She has had her own sense of discretion, and I respect that.
And mostly, I am calm. I suffer occasional bouts of anxiety, you know, climbing on that endless hamster wheel that goes nowhere. I swim, I walk, and the good chemicals help wash it away. And I listen to the voice in my head that I think of as God speaking to me. He’s very repetitive. He says, “I’ve got this.”
I have discovered that anxiety gets me nowhere, and listening to that voice, letting go, has empirical value – it works for me.
Post-Hurricane Isaias there is SO much to do. Big expensive tasks that cannot be left undone. Dangerous things, like the big hanging tree, and a treacherous jungle area.
Friday, one pool friend mentioned casually that her son had some experience and could help us with the jungle. We met him, were impressed, and he is coming Monday to tackle the jungle. Yesterday, a church friend called me, asking if I needed a tree service that was insured and certified and had an arborist. Yes, that was exactly what I needed. Exactly that team had finished at her house, and she wanted to know if we would like to meet with them for an estimate. I could hear her relief and happiness with the work this team had done.
We met with the team this morning, and they will schedule us for this week, saying that, indeed, our situation with the hanging tree is dangerous. Our neighbor, in whose yard the top third of the tree is resting, was home and approved access through his gate. We are thankful for good neighbors.
Our family is coming with chili for tonight’s dinner. AdventureMan is making cornbread. I have made guacamole and a cheese dip.
The hamster wheel sits silent, unused in a corner of my mind.
Not So Fast
It is a humbling experience (she says wryly) to be experiencing a sharply upward learning curve at a point in my life when I am supposed to be wise, by virtue of age and experience.
Yes, I have been through one prior full-blown hurricane, and many tropical storms, sandstorms, more than one earthquake, and even a flood. No two have been the same. I’ve lived a life full of challenges, and thrived. I’ve learned to think fast, to solve problems. I’m good at it.
So now, I am learning one of life’s less glamorous skills – patience. We have cleaned up. By the Grace of God, we have a person willing to help us clear the last spot needing clearing in our yard, a young man, experienced in tree work, the son of a friend. God truly works in wonderful ways.
We still have a big tree problem, this huge fallen tree in three backyards, hanging over us like the Sword of Damocles. I listen to my more experienced friends; they are all pragmatic. They say a variety of different words, all of which mean “Patience. This will take time.”
Finally, a disaster has been declared in our county. It took a week. FEMA, an organization which at one time was a shining light in our governmental policies, able to respond quickly and efficiently to disasters, is now hamstrung by cutbacks in personnel, funding and political machinations. Who and how they can help has changed. It hurts my heart that aid and lucrative contracts seem to be easily come by, while hands on help to those who need it most desperately, is very slow.
People talk about the blue tarps. In earlier years, almost immediately, trucks would go around giving out free blue tarps to homes with roof damage, to prevent more damage until the roofs could be repaired. We would fly into Pensacola and see entire areas with blue tarp roofs. I have seen a lot of roof damage inflicted by Hurricane Isaias; I have yet to see even one blue tarp. Such a simple necessity that can prevent so much more expense. Where are the tarps?
Neighbors are helping neighbors. Our neighbors who share our hanging tree are being wonderful. Everyone (except me) seems to understand that it will be fixed, and that it will take time. We are not a high priority. Intellectually, I can understand that. Emotionally . . . I am practicing patience. I am learning to practice to be patient. In some areas, I am a slow learner.
I have a small white sock on my buffet; it is a remnant of the load of wash I did for my granddaughter. They will be here for dinner tomorrow night and she can pick it up then. We are also working on a quilted holder for her Bedazzled work; I don’t know who is having more fun, her in eagerness for the container or me, in the design and making of it.
As soon as they got their electricity back, we lost our water, for hours, and when it came back, it was all brown. Finally, it ran clear, but it came also with a “Boil water” notice from our utility. I am reminded of Tunis, and Jordan back in the day, when boiling water was a normal part of life, and we had a big water purifyer called a Puro that we filled with boiling water and it filtered it all through large chalk filters.
Yesterday, after six days of sunshine and no wind, another smaller storm moved in and we waited for the other shoe to drop.
A lot of clean-up has been done. We are waiting for the disposal teams to come by and pick up debris. Meanwhile, the trees, grids, and water system still have invisible damage; changes in weather are likely to bring more unanticipated consequences.
The Worst Tease
My son texted first thing this morning.
“We had electricity last night for seven minutes before it went back out. Worst tease ever.”
My daughter-in-law is having a good hot shower in AdventureMans Africa-theme bathroom. Hurricanes are good for stripping down the luxuries and showing us the necessities of life.
Unequal Restoration of Power
We had a celebration breakfast this morning for our restoration of power. Schools are closed today, the Y was closed in the morning, County and State work was limited so we had a free day and AdventureMan did a BIG breakfast, with his famous biscuits, fried potatoes, sausages and eggs-to-order.
In the middle of breakfast, our son and his wife received messages that their power would not be restored until Wednesday, while almost every Florida Power customer in Escambia was told it would be restored no later than 5 today. They were so disappointed, flummoxed. Going without electricity and internet gets old in a hurry.
Florida Power sent out the following notice to customers, and I believe it is a very fine, honest and open piece of communication describing the enormous probles restoring the electrical grid after a hurricane of this size:
| Crews continue working around the clock to restore power following Isaias. Restoration is essentially complete in Bay, Holmes, Jackson, Okaloosa, Washington and Walton counties. Our focus remains on Escambia and Santa Rosa, where tree damage was more severe and widespread than initial assessments showed. By the end of today, we expect to restore power to most affected customers in Escambia and Santa Rosa, including all schools, hospitals and other critical facilities. We expect to essentially complete restoration in the remaining hardest-hit areas by end of day Tuesday, Oct. 13, for customers who can safely receive power. We know every additional hour without power is difficult. For the latest update, view your personalized outage information. You may not see crews nearby because they may be repairing parts of the energy grid miles away that must be restored first. Some homes and businesses may have damaged customer-owned electrical equipment that must be repaired by a licensed electrician before we can safely restore power. After service is restored, some customers may experience outages or flickers as crews identify and repair additional storm damage. Please keep safety your top priority. Stay far away from downed power lines, flooding and debris, and follow guidance from local emergency officials. We appreciate your patience and won’t stop working until power is restored to every customer. Stay safe. |
As disappointing as this news is – the damage in our beautiful, treacherously treed area is extensive. Street after street is blocked by fallen trees, still. Many of these trees brought down power lines. Many of the poles were snapped in half!
It is 6:15 p.m. and our garbage was just picked up. Such is the service oriented attitude of all these employees, working so hard to get Pensacola back to normal as quickly as possible.
We’ve told our family they are welcome to come over, hang out while charging up their phones and computers, and to take hot showers here, even bring their laundry. We expect they’ll take us up on it.
Isiais Coming In
We lost power just as I was making one last entry. It returned today, Sunday, late in the afternoon. I kept notes, and I will share them with you.
We lost power around 5. It happened slowly. We would lose power for a few seconds, then it would come on again. Even the last time, when we heard the transformer outside our house SNAP!, we had hopes it would come back on. It didn’t.
Here is a blessing. The weather is cool. What really makes it hard is the lack of air conditioning, but the air is cool enough: we are comfortable. With the shutters on and locked, it is very dark, and worse, we cannot see what is happening outside except for glimpses out the corners of our shutters and the back door. We have no internet. The phones are working, and we learn the storm is wobbling toward Destin.
Our phones are all charged, but we don’t want to use them because we may need them – urgently – if we are directly hit. No one really knows. We hear the storm has moved east of us, and later it learn that it hit Destin/Navarre more directly, but the preceding bands of lashing winds and rain hit here earlier in the day and got stronger as the day went on. We learned that the bridge over to Gulf Breeze closed at 3:30, in that old abundance of caution (which we learned is a good way to go when the bridge was badly damaged during Hurricane Sally, and we lost its use for months.)
We have lanterns. They are strong and glaring. The winds speed up and then pick up again. It gets very wild outside; the cats are freaking out, and a loud thump and brushing sound hits the north side of the house, and we know a limb is down, and maybe a power line with it. I go to look out the back door – it is covered with a piece of ballistic mesh, a requirement for houses so that occupants have a way to exit quickly if something violent happens – a treefall directly on the house, a gas explosion, a fire – anything requiring a quick exit.
We can see through the mesh, dimly. The winds are crazy: the trees are twisting, writhing, it is painful to watch. There are no lights at all, no streetlights, no human lights. But something looks weird in our far back lot, and I call AdventureMan,
“I think I see a huge tree sort of hanging horizontally, but maybe I’m not seeing what I think I see. Will you take a look?”
He peers; I point to what I think is one end and the line the maybe-tree is taking. He agrees, and we agree that to go outside to check in the midst of wildly chaotic winds might satisfy our curiosity, but might also kill us. Being people who laugh during the worst times, we speculate on the headlines, like Pensacola couple steps into backyard, killed by falling tree.” Using our wiser judgement, we stay inside.
The winds are over by nine. It is very, very quiet. No cars are going by. There are no streetlights. There are no lights in any of our near neighbors’ houses; there is a light farther up the street where someone has started up a generator.
The stress is over, as we are exhausted. There is no electricity, no internet. We can read by lantern light, but we are tired from the stress, from all the preparations, so we turn out the light early and are asleep as our heads hit the pillows. We are thankful this day is over, and more than a little afraid of what we will find tomorrow.
Awaiting Landfall
I usually swim on Friday mornings, really early so I can get on with my day. I didn’t set my alarm last night, just figured I would sleep until I couldn’t sleep and get up, so I was about an hour behind my normal, but not bad. It was raining when I stepped outside, enough so that I wanted to have a coat on.
The pool was packed! It was like everyone wanted to swim because we never knew when we might see the pool open again. Hurricane Sally, six years ago, changed a lot of things, and helped us never take anything for granted again. I just did a short swim so I could go home and help AdventureMan finish closing up the shutters. Once the final shutter is closed, it is very dark inside.
While I was at the pool, Hurricane Isaias increased to a level 3 hurricane. AdventureMan was already out fixing the last of the shutters. I had thought maybe the shutters were overkill, but once we learned Isaias was now level 3, we were glad to have them. Our house looks like a fortress now.
We closed out our checklists and went to lunch. AdventureMan was kidding me about doing one last load of laundry, but . . . you never know what is coming next. It might be a while before I can do laundry again. We were at Mama Tacos, up on Olive, and crew after crew of big electrical vehicals pulled in and they all met up for lunch.
And when we got back, the house was dark, and we had no electricity. The rain had increased, we could hear someone running their generator, and I called Florida Power and told them we had an outage. I don’t know what magic spell they incanted, but we had our electricity back within 15 minutes. I kind of laughed to myself, I thought it would take longer because they were all eating at Mama Tacos. We took Scenic on our way home, and at the intersection of I-10 and Scenic we saw a hotel with at least fifty electric rigs, all present to take care of the damage Isaias is expected to inflict.
I decided to take a bath, not knowing when I might bathe again. AdventureMan came in to visit me as I bathed and looked a little lost. I asked what was up, and he told me he’d completed his list, he knows he shouldn’t be out on the road, it is time to settle in for what is to come, but he is restless and feels like he should be DOING something. I’m hoping he will take a good nap 😊.
Here’s the latest map I can find:
And in twenty four hours, it should be over.
Anxiety and Hurricane Prep
Hurricanes are instructive. They don’t go where they are supposed to go. They wobble. You can prepare like crazy, and they go somewhere else. Today, Pensacola is preparing. Here is today’s forecast. Where the map explodes is Pensacola.
The last time Pensacola was struck by a hurricane was Hurricane Sally. She was supposed to go to Alabama, but at 2 in the morning, big surprise, she hit Pensacola.
Early this morning, they filled their tanks (so did I).
By eight in the morning, the parking lot at the local Publix was full! I had to park in the outside ring
AdventureMan had picked up most of what we needed at the commissary; I just needed a few additional supplies:
Apples, snow peas, and cookies at Buy one-Get one. I bought enough to share with the neighbors or any family that might drop in,
We spend the rest of the morning closing the steel shutters:
Very sturdy, and they let in some light, but the inside gets really dark when the shutters are on.
“Eau de toilette”, in case we have no water.
Our granddaughter was out of school early, so we picked her up for lunch and an afternoon together.
Even by noon, rumors are making their rounds that the storm will fade almost as quickly as it hits land, people are looking much more relaxed.
Booooo! Halloween Comes to the Commissary
In my first year in Pensacola, I bought two big pumpkins for my front porch, hollowed them out, carved expressions on their faces, and put candles inside. They were fabulous – for about two days. After that, large splotches of black mold appeared inside the pumpkins and grew daily. Even before Halloween, they started caving in, and while they looked funny, they were also disgusting, and I had to throw them away. I’ve never carved a pumpkin since.
It’s still more than 6 weeks away, but Halloween seems to show up earlier every year. The commissary started in late August, and now has a full display of pumpkins, even pumpkins I had never imagined.
And my very favorite kind of pumpkin, available only in season at the Hot Spot Barbecue 😊:
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