A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....09-23-03....Isabel

9/23/03 | FreeTheHostages

[FreeTheHostages]

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day

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Hurricane War Stories

Tell us your Isabel war story here, if indeed you have electricity to do so.

Well, it was not the prettiest radar image for weather.


Having spent the last week staring at loads of NOAA weather graphs, all my block has to show for the event is a tree right across from my house that basically aimed at my house but was too small to hit it. Two of my neighbors helped me saw it away and we opened up our street for business. I'm not certain, but it may well be illegal to clear a downed tree on public ground in this city!

The winds around here never got too bad, their worst in DC was around midnight:



But that was strong enough to leave many homes without power, and I and many other volunteers worked our muscles sore after the storm distributing ice to powerless neighbors. My hurricane relief work will have to constitute my excuse for missing the DC Chapter's meeting Sunday, but rumor has it tgslTakoma was out of electricity and so cooked up a storm of food for the meeting!

Well, that hurricane behaved just like a Democrat, didn't it? Mindlessly destructive and noisy!
Hmm, sounds like a top ten list. Share with us your hurricane war story and I'll share with you my hurricane top ten list.



Top Ten Reasons that Isabel was a Democrat

10. It was an expensive mess.

 9. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit didn't try to stop it.

 8. It received an inordinate amount of press attention.

 7. It harmed rich and poor alike.

 6. It behaved irrationally.

 5. It favored the East Coast of the U.S.

 4. It gave federal government workers two days off for free.

 3. Its statistics were overblown, inaccurate, and highly misleading.

 2. It was mindlessly noisy.

and the number one reason why Isabel is a Democrat . . . .  1. It thrived on hot air.

THIS WEEK'S THREADS 09-22-03 Military Monday

Opinions by our own 'King of Ping' The guy's good, folks!

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[Pippin]

Hi, Billie!

I "recall" all that!

[The Thin Man]

Hi Pippin. Glad you survived the hurricane and got a couple of days off to boot. :)

[Pippin]

YEP!

Thanks!

[FreeTheHostages]

None of these things are typos.

I'm afraid you're slipping.

And there was a typo, just for you, too. ;)

[tgslTakoma]

I'm back.

Time to bore you all with my story...

I was at work on Thursday and had to stay late to take care of one more patient; and when I went out to my truck at 6:30pm I found that a bunch of tree branches had been broken and blown off the massive trees in our parking lot. One had hit my truck, but the only apparent damage was that it took out my driver's side mirror. While I was out in the rain (wearing the camo Gore-Tex rain suit that was a gift from Doctor Raoul a few months ago) with hospital security writing a report on that, my kids paged me with a "911" message.

I called home and they told me that our neighbor's huge tree (mom always said it was a wild cherry tree - I don't know trees) had just fallen on our house. The kids said it bounced off the roof, shaking the house when it hit and taking out another 30' tree in our back yard as it fell; but that there were no broken windows and that it didn't appear as if the rain was getting in the house. Our apartment is on the second floor (top floor) of an old brick and block house, and the kids' rooms are where the tree hit. I told them I would get home as soon as I could and told them to stay away from the windows and near the center of the house.

So, after rushing the security guy through the report, I high-tailed it on home. By then it was almost 8pm. It was a spooky drive, trees down, branches littering the usually busy roads all along the way. And dark, everywhere.

When I got home I took a look at the tree that fell. When I saw the size of the part of the tree that fell, I think my words were "Oh my God!" or something similar. Our yard is very small, maybe 50' wide and 20' deep at most; and the downed tree filled the entire yard. I climbed through the mess as best I could and tried to make sure that the roof looked intact and that all the windows in mom's downstairs apartment were still intact (miraculously they were), and that the tree had not punctured the vinyl siding on the back wall of the house.

Large branches of the tree were hard up against the siding, the windows, and the back storm door, but not a break or crack on anything. Wow!

Daughter and son were pretty wound up when I got inside, and I can understand why. I'll have them tell you what it was like for them when the tree hit. I told them both that our angels were hard at work keeping us safe that night, for sure.

I took pictures that night and the next morning and have put them up on this Webshots album (down at the bottom of the first page and also on later pages, too). If the tree had hit straight-on, things could have been much worse. As it was, it hit at an angle and sort-of slid off the roof and rested in the yard.

That night we stayed in the house (no power). I moved daughter's mattress out of her room and into the safer living room. Son said he would tough it out in his room, even though there was still one big sycamore hanging over his room. Must be a guy thing, I guess. The wind howled and none of us slept well as we listened for more trees through the night. At about 4:30am I was awakened by a noise from my son's room. I called out to him and asked if he was still awake. He flew into my room saying, "Something's trying to get in my window!" The tree branches were up against his window on the outside and his bed was up against the wall and windows. I got up and got my flashlight just as son said, "It's a racoon!" He had apparently climbed up the branch to the window and was scratching on it, trying to get in out of the rain, I guess. I shined my flashlight on the window and the racoon was gone. Son and racoon probably both scared the bejeebers out of one another!

Friday morning daughter and I took pictures and surveyed damage... We found that an old, unused galvanized steel clothesline frame, that had been there since the house was built, took a direct hit from a part of the tree. The crosspiece, which was 1-1/2" dia. was bent into a V by the force of the falling tree. Later Friday morning daughter went to stay with a girlfriend for the duration of the power outage. Son went to work with me and we were offered safe harbor at Warlord's (little did he know that we would be crowding him for four days - what a patient man).

Son and I cleared out the refrigerator on Saturday, everything in the freezer was still well-frozen as it was fully packed, but we didn't want to lose everything, so we took it to Kristinn's and I started cooking what wouldn't fit in his freezer for the Sunday chapter meeting.

Son and I have spent the past two days renovating his room, apparently the trees which are still up against the house (my sister is in charge of mom's stuff since mom has been sick, and hasn't yet been able to get a tree removal guy out here, and I'm not supposed to mess with it - sigh) brought a plague of ants inside. Today I check his sister's room for the same plague. Yuck!

But today we got here to the house and we have power. Hallelujah!

My neighbor across the street had a bunch of limbs from her huge maple tree that hit her house, but no apparent damage to the roof. She had been in her tub looking up through the skylight when the limbs came down onto it! She said that was pretty freaky, watching as a tree limb was coming right for her!

The night that Isabel came through my neighborhood was an eventful one, but we had it easy compared to folks elsewhere. I count myself as very fortunate that none of my family got hurt and that we only lost power, a car mirror and some food.

[FreeTheHostages]

Wow, what a hurricane story! I saw the links on that tree -- it's HUGE!! What a story!! Whew, tgsl, I'm glad you and yours are safe.

I had power throughout. I was activated to do disaster relief (having joined DC citizen corp) and gave out a lot of wet and dry ice Friday and Saturday. Saturday I got to set up and run the line and we had an average service time of *two minutes* -- I was working with a team of DC parking enforcement guys and needless to say those guys are real efficient. We gave out 1,250 packages of ice, each containing 42 pounds of wet ice, on Saturday. Courtesy of FEMA. (Of course, the dry ice PEPCO was supposed to have never showed up.)

Every bone in my body still aches. I was doing a lot of running around and lifting. I actually have a sun burn from being outside Friday and Saturday with ice deliveries.

My friends -- perhaps you too -- say "WHAT!!? YOU HAD ICE??!! YOU WERE GIVING IT AWAY!!? WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME?" My job was to direct the delivery in high volume to whomever showed up at my point of distribution -- I didn't have time to take the ice from there and deliver it elsewhere. Still, I feel guilty when I hear stories like yours about people losing their whole fridge of food.

Wow, tgsl. That's some story.

[FreeTheHostages]

I'm still whistling in disbelieve at that bent-into-a-V steel. Wow.

Hey, am I allowed to feel a little sorry for the raccoon? Poor thing . . .

[FreeTheHostages]

I looked at those photos and, tell me if I'm wrong, daughterofTgsl seems kinda sleepy and shocked in the photos.

[dansangel]

(((((Freezie)))))

Your "Top Ten" is a hoot! Thank you for more of an update on the storm in your area than I received from my own daughter. :-(

She and my s-i-l live in Fairfax VA and my daughter commutes to Georgetown to work. I know they had electricity the day after because I received an email from my s-i-l about some headhunter info I had requested. Not a word about the storm or what they had to go through! Sheesh.

I had called them the night before the storm made landfall and made my s-i-l promise not to let my hard-headed daughter go to work. I was glad the next day when I heard that DC had "shut down."

Great job on the graphics. I *love* your style!

[dansangel]

One more thing....Dan and I had a hard time with how our local FOX news reporters insisted on calling the storm "EEZYBELL" when everyone else referred to it as "Isabel."

Sheesh.

:-)

[FreeTheHostages]

LOL, I'm *sure* your daughter has hurricane war stories and, from the looks of things, I'm sure you'll have to pry them out of her!

[FreeTheHostages]

If she's in Fairfax, she did have to boil her drinking water for a couple of days.

[dansangel]

If she's in Fairfax, she did have to boil her drinking water for a couple of days.

When I spoke to my son-in-law before the storm hit, he said they had stocked up on plenty of bottled water. I suggested that they thoroughly clean and then fill their two bathtubs for washing and cats' (they have three) drinking water. Also for flushing in case the water was shut off. Hope he listened.

You can tell I'm a hurricane veteran from FL - LOL!

[FreeTheHostages]

There's *so much* bottled water sold in these parts. Your people being young and all, I'd bet they spent $ on bottled water instead.

Well, some people remain without power. One of my co-workers is STILL out.

[dansangel]

One of my co-workers is STILL out.

We had a bad ice storm here in January 2000. Some folks were without power for *three weeks* - can you believe?

We lucked out - the power for us was only out about 12 hours.

[Pippin]

For some reason I keep visualizing no democrats

Hmmmm......!

[dansangel]

((((((((Pippin)))))))))

So good to *see* you!

:-)

[iceskater]

Wow, you are very fortunate that none of those trees hit your house. Amazing.

[FreeTheHostages]

See, but Isabel sent the trees in her direction.

And Isabel sent a tree in my direction.

Hmmm, more proof that it's a Dem: it attacks Freepers!

[GailA]

When Memphis had that INLAND hurricane a couple of months ago, it took them nearly 30 days to get everyone back on. It seems our electric systems all across the US are getting OLD, and are not being up dated as they should. Folks use to trim their trees to keep them from falling on power lines. Now no one does it anymore and the lines are often brought down due to storms, and you end up with hundreds or thousands with out power.