sporkchop

Monday:

1:59 a.m. and the power is out.  I’m able to type this because my parents brought the laptop back today.  Shea is in our room freakin’ out, having a fit with every whistle and whirl of the wind.

I can honestly say that this is THE WORST storm I’ve ever seen around here.  I’m sitting on my bed with my back to part of the window and thinking that it isn’t exactly the safest place to be.  Claude just came out of the playroom, listening out the window to the crashes, bangs and booms.

Shea is drawing by the light of the screen and now Claude is bitching about wanting to go to sleep. 

Paul, our neighbor across the street was outside with a flashlight looking at his roof, we weren’t sure what was going on but it was fun to be nosey!

2:09 a.m.….Shea will NOT shut up.  She’s rambling on and on about Washington State and how she has been practicing drawing her diamonds, but not very goodly.  Her words, not mine.  I hate it when I’m up late because then I get hungry.  I don’t need to eat, but you know….all the excitement, the early morning hours…..candle light.  Ahhhhhh!

The wall behind me is shaking pretty bad, rumbling and moaning like the siding is going to get blown off.  The rain is slapping against the window like tacks.  It’s nasty out there. 

Time for me to go….Boss Hog’s gettin’ pissy!

9:49 a.m.….The power is of course still out, the storm hasn’t let up at all.  I fed the kids some cereal while the milk was still cold and we’re all sitting around downstairs bundled up in our comfiest!  I just got a call from the National Weather Service telling me that there’s a flood watch in our area.  Umm, ya think?  Then I got a call from Brenda from school asking me to call all the preschool parents and let them know that there’s no school today.  One of the parents asked how I was and I said, “Oh, I’m ok, how are you?”  He responded with, “Well…I’m screwed like the rest of the town!”  All the outgoing roads are closed so it’s not like we can leave town to find power…all the highways are blocked with either down trees, mudslides or both.

On the radio this morning they said that it might take a few days to get power restored to all parts of the harbor…but I’m hoping that they get to it today obviously.

I’m trying to listen to the radio but the kids will NOT shut up so I can hear.  I’m getting pissed.

We left and went to Grannies house for awhile and heated up some meatballs and rice.  The kids hung out and played with the animals.  We were able to warm up some at least.  While we were out and about, we scoped out some of the damage around town.  I would have never in a million years known that it was going to be so bad.  Windows were completely shattered out of store fronts, signs ripped down, twisted and mangled.  Streets were flooded, the field was flooded to the top and there were a handful of people playing in the water.  By playing I mean, they were up to their armpits splashing and carrying on like it was a summer day at the park.  It’s still storming and there are signs of roof damage everywhere you turn, shingles, metal scraps, gutters…

5:49 p.m. now….and we’re at Sam & Debbie’s house (Claude’s brother).  We hauled in our blankets, some food and clothes and plan on waiting out this shitty storm here until power is restored to everyone.

Tuesday:

I couldn’t tell you what time I woke up this morning, but the day started off pretty good.  Sam drove up to his father in laws house and borrowed their generator.  He hooked it up to the outside freezer and also charged up their phones.  Then Sam, Debbie and Claude left to head to the store since a couple were open and only allowing customers one at a time so as to avoid looting.  They came back with a ton of stuff including fruit, eggs, pasta, soups and snacks just to name a few.  Oh!  And COFFEE!!!!  J

Sam and Claude drove to Montesano in search of gas, but the line was too long so they drove to Elma instead.  They were gone quite awhile since you can’t just drive straight through on the highway.  There are mudslides and 10 plus feet of water on parts of different highways.

Once they got back Sam charged up the laptop, our phones and some neighbor guys’ phone that came over asking if we could help him out.

We’ve been eating pretty well since the outage, but we weren’t planning on being treated to salamis and cheeses from Quiznos!  Debbie has a friend that works there and they weren’t able to keep everything cold enough so they had to get rid of it.  Since there was nothing wrong with it, we took two huge chubs of meat and two big hunks of cheese including cheddar and swiss.  There was also some pepper jack slices, flat bread and French bread, yum!

Needless to say we had huge grilled sammiches for lunch, they were great and the kids sure wolfed them down!

We ate spaghetti for dinner, got the kids settled in for bed and then Claude, Sam, Debbie, Ariel and I sat in the living room and watched Super Bad on the laptop.  It was so funny…we missed the very end of it since the laptop ran out of juice…but that’s ok, another time.

Wednesday:

12:42 a.m., power came on!  Hurray!!!!!  I was trying to sleep but it just wasn’t working for me when I heard a slight buzzing sound and saw light through my eyelids.  I was going to check and see if the light switch was on before I got into bed but neglected to do so.

I got up, turned the light off, and tried to get the heater, or what I think might be the heater to turn on, but either I’m stupid or it just doesn’t work ’cause I can’t figure it out.

Back into bed for a bit then Claude woke up about 4 something talking about how he should just leaves now and get some gas in the truck and something about a shower and after we each got a peck of a kiss he was on his way.  There might have been some arguing about NOT kicking in the garage door this time and actually using the key, also that he could just take a shower HERE since we have power, but no.  I was being stupid I guess for even suggesting such things….especially that we have a KEY for that DOOR?!

He ended up back here within the hour, took a shower, came back in to tell me that we still don’t have power at our house but Fastenal does, so he was going over there to use the computer and make sure he had everything he needed for his trip.

I was thinking about driving to my parents’ house tonight, but if Sam and Debbie have power, it’s kind of silly for me to waste gas (that I don’t even HAVE yet) to drive the 13 miles if I don’t have to.  Sam said he’d give me some gas out of the gas can that he took to Debbies parents house if I need it.

6:36 a.m. now, people are stirring around the house.  I hear Noah upstairs coughing and playing with something…Debbie has to get up for work here pretty soon and I should be sleeping, but I’m so shittin’ cold, not to mention hungry.

We got our power back sometime today, I took the kids out to my parents house for a visit (since the kids pitched a fit!), they still don’t have power.  My grandma doesn’t have any power either, but at least she has heat and food!  I told her to come to my house but she can’t leave the dogs out since part of her fence fell down during the storm.

Thursday:

I feel much better being in my own house, able to wash clothes and have hot running water.  I’m one of the lucky ones.  I hope that the USCG and FEMA get everyone taken care of soon.  It’s been almost 5 days for some people.

Grannie is coming over to cook some of her food before it goes bad.  Claudes mom and boyfriend are probably coming over to stay the night since they still dont have power either.

Some of the upsides to the power being out: