What about the cats? And Rosie, where's your report? <grin> Did Cisco hold up better than Homer?
We left the cats in the house during the storm. We figured, they'd probably hide under the bed and wouldn't likely be smooshed if a tree hit the house. They're small ;~)
Rosie's cats are here now, she brought them over when she came over yesterday.
Rosie will have to write her report tomorrow, she's gone to bed, and ecurbh is snoring on the couch... I'm working on chapter 2 before I go to bed myself ;~)
My report...pretty much meshes with Hair's after the first night. But I'll do a few chapters. ;-)
That night, they were here from about six until I decided to go to bed. It didn't seem all that bad out there at that point. I think we were kind of wondering if the whole deal had been exaggerated. It was very breezy, but no worse than some of the other wind storms we've had this year. Kind of neat standing out there watching it...especially as it was incredibly warm at that point - balmy, almost. We had seen transformers going all around, though. Almost felt a little left out in that our power was still fine.
So I went to bed, and then the wind started picking up. And picking up. I've never heard wind like that, as I mentioned. Started hearing branches crack and small things battering the sides of the house. The siding didn't go until more like one o'clock, after it was completely dark out. A piece came off on the wall that's right behind my bedroom. At first it just came loose and was banging - I was cringing every time a gust came up and yanked at it. When it finally came off, it was quieter, but I could hear the rain and wind a lot louder in that corner. Ended up standing in my closet with a flashlight, trying to see if water was getting in, because I could hear it so loud.
We had radios, but they weren't fully charged. I could see Hair and Ecurbh's headlights, and thought about radioing them to see if they could point the lights towards the house and see what was up with the siding, since I was afraid to go out in the storm; but when I finally tried to radio, it had run out of power. So I had to wait until morning.
The wind died down not too long after that.
When it started getting light, I took a flashlight and went over to see if Hair and Ecurbh had come through all right. The house was OK, but as you saw from the pictures, branches were everywhere! It was just amazing - couldn't see the drive, couldn't see the lawn - just branches. We'll have to get some pictures of the pile o' branches once it's completely stacked up. The piles are already pretty impressive, and really only the driveway is clear.
We made coffee on the burner on their gas grill. I'd gotten a few pages from my boss, but they were garbled. I got something about a tree being across the main drive of the building, but I figured since they're right by the hospital, they probably had power back. Figured I'd better go in.
Power was only on in a few places along the way. Lots of traffic lights becoming multi-way stops. When I got to the building, there was a tree across the drive still, and the power was still out, so I paged my boss and said I'd try again later, maybe. I thought I'd try to pick up breakfast sandwiches or something on my way home, but nowhere had power. The one place I found that *did* have power didn't have the ability to do debit cards, and of course I'd stupidly not thought to get cash before the storm. One for the preparedness list, I guess.
That was when Rose called - I was just coming to an intersection of two four-lane roads plus turn lanes, all without a traffic light. Stuff like that gets reallllly interesting. It was very nice to leave *town*.
More after I get back from church...