Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Gustav afterward

Tuesday, September 2, 2008
18 steps out
5:00 am

A long, hot, humid and uneasy night. Might as well get up and call to see if we need to go run the mail. Of course we have no phone service now.

QNZ has been on 24 hrs for days and they are saying power is out in 100% of the area. But the postal service number still says things are 'normal' in our area and we should report to work. So as soon as daylight, such as it is, comes, we'll take the big truck and head toward Natchez. I'm not crazy about crossing the Ms River bridge with the high winds that are coming through.

The good news about WQNZ is they are keeping us up to date, instructing people not to get on the roads – which they are ignoring – about toll free numbers to call for early claims submission – if you have a phone – numbers to call if you have trees over the lines.

Our little bayou block has several trees on lines. Of course, some of our smart neighbors have generators. Yeah, I'll have one within a month, whether CFM says yes to it or not. He's been putting it off every time we have an emergency for more than a decade.

The bad news is – I'm sick to death of country music. Sorry. But it's the truth.

We headed out and a large tree was across the road. Had to call a friend who has a big chain saw but he was out of town so had to hunt down his son to get it for us. Finally, we got to Vidalia – way too many non essential cars on the road, including us, but it wasn't my choice.

Homeland Security is telling everyone to stay home, do NOT get on the road. Called the postmaster and he said they had people everywhere but no lights. Plenty of mail – heaviest day for my route is today – but no light to put it up. Jackson is sending a generator but it would be this afternoon before any mail could be delivered. He said he didn't think they'd be going today. I said well, do I need to cross the bridge and come over there? He told me not to worry about it.

So we came back home to try to assess the damage to our property – another tree down since last night, that makes two – and countless, countless big limbs, branches, water filling the ditches, culverts, and bayou. CFM is a little concerned that the bayou could fill up enough to actually flood us. That should actually be impossible in my opinion unless a levee broke since we're on a ridge. But we definitely might be surrounded by water right up to the slab and not able to get out. The bayou would have to come up 18 more steps to be at the top where everyone here would be flooded. I'll check this this evening to see how much it's risen today.

The water comes from runoff from the lakes around here. When the water is high in the rivers around us they have to shut the pumps down at the end of the bayou and ours starts backing up. On our way back from Natchez we saw all the ditches were slam full where the water comes out of the fields and crawfish ponds.

Two of our friends called us to get their stuff out of their freezer and fridge here so we ate deer sausage and eggs and grilled toast for breakfast since that's the only thing working – the gas stove.
10:00 am
I found my old car adapter inverter and finally made it work so I could recharge my laptop. My macbook will run for five hours so I can get a lot of writing or editing done. This should be a good time to start writing forward on something, huh, since I can't work, can't get on the phone and can't watch tv.

11:00 am
YIPPEE
Our neighbor has an extra generator and is going to let us borrow it so we might even get some internet or tv or lights or how about a fan so we can sleep tonight. Right now I have what few windows I have open with towels to catch the rain coming in. Too hot with them closed.

Amazing how your priorities change when they have to.

1 comment:

Leah Braemel said...

oh, yikes!

See CFM and Gizmo Guy think alike - GG wouldn't have gone for gas either. :(

Good that you've got a generator. Now you need to buy your own.

And glad to hear you didn't do the mail today. I know "through rain and sleet" and all that, but that's ridiculous to expect it to go through when they're telling ppl to stay off the roads.