How're you all doing over there Lass? Things have been a bit wild & woolly. Please tell us you are okay.
My first thought was @GrannyBarb when my radio was turned on early this morning. Hope you are OK, Granny Barb.
Fingers crossed, but I think that the tornadoes made landfall a couple of hundred miles to the north of where @GrannyBarb lives. Still in Alabama but to the north of the state, whereas Barb lives in Lower Alabama.
Also thinking of GrannyBarb. I have family in the Florida area but all seem well. Hoping Barb and her family are keeping safe
trouble is she might not have access to internet to let us know even if the time 2020 has really been a annus horribilis as our Queen would say keep safe granny barb and everyone else
Hi, all. I'm back online, finally. I missed you all! We're fine here, but tired. I'll check in later with the details. Thanks for all of your kind thoughts. I did try to send an email from my phone to @Sis , but I guess it didn't go through. Services have been very spotty.
Glad you are okay, @GrannyBarb. I watched some of the nasty scenes on the news. Was southern Georgia affected as well.. I have a distant elderly cousin who isn't answering her emails and I am wondering about her.
Thanks for your kind words and thoughts. The past few days and nights have been about surviving on diminished conveniences. The next couple of days will be putting the home and ourselves back in order - then we'll address the downed trees and damaged fences. We only lost a few shingles off the roof. Again, I'll come back with more details later. There is a pretty good story there. Love y'all!
Ah, there you are. Glad you're ok, @GrannyBarb My mother has friends in Mobile - they always seem to bear the brunt of these things.
Hope you are back in order soon, without too much effort. I cannot begin to imagine what living through weather like that is like. Glad you and yours are safe
Sorry, Sue, I didn't answer your question. All I can say is "I don't know." Once the storm hit us, we were pretty well blacked out on all news except updates on the local situation.
So here's my narrative of events, more or less. I hope it's not too long. Last Monday (gee, almost a week ago now), we got a call from Hubby's son that he and some of the family from Missouri and Oklahoma (his in-laws) were at a condo in Orange Beach! This is a 45 minute drive but only 15 miles south of us as the crow flies. It was a last minute decision to come down, and there had been a plumbing problem in the 12th floor unit they had reserved, and so were moved one building over on the 2nd floor. He was calling to invite us to come over Tuesday for a visit, a meal, and to meet his 2 1/2 year old grand-daughter. At that time, Sally was supposed to make landfall in Louisiana or Mississippi with only minor impacts in this area. We were more nervous about Covid exposure. 4 members of their group have had it, including my stepson, who is still easily tired from it. Hubby hasn't been anywhere since Feb, and has numerous health issues. Tuesday, they called again, adding to the mix that they have purchased all the trappings to throw an early birthday party for ME! How could we refuse? Storm? Covid? Actually, the wee child was the big draw, but my DIL is a good cook. We drove down there, in the gusting rain, over the toll bridge - which we were told would be closed that afternoon before 5. We had a great visit with the kids and in-laws. Took photos just inside the big sliding door onto the balcony with the clouds, rough surf, palm trees bending in the wind in the background. Landfall projections were for Mobile Bay, still a good bit west of where we were. We took our leave with lots of leftovers, and headed home. Roadside ditches had filled up and were starting to over-top the roads. Rain was blowing sideways. Around 7 pm I started getting concerned texts and emails from my family members in Texas and Colorado. The landfall projections had us in the bullseye. I sent reassurances that we were home and safe. Wind gusts here were about 60 mph. We've seen worse. I fell asleep early and woke up around 1:30 a.m. We still had power, so I checked the local news channel. They were showing live footage from their beach cams and other places, along with the high tech radar, etc. One intersection, less than a mile from that condo was totally flooded with high winds. The rest of the night was spent in a text conversation with my stepson. They were without power, or other communication except the updates I sent based on what was on tv. When they were in the eyewall, the steady winds were 105 mph with gusts up to 125 mph. They said the water was coming in under that big sliding door, and it was all they could do to hold it shut. They live in tornado country. Bad weather doesn't scare them much, but they have storm shelters in their basements. When they were in the eye, they went outside briefly to check on vehicles - now windowless. About that time the worst part of the storm started here, and we lost power. Every time there was a hard gust, the house would shake and I would have a startle response. Aside from that, it really wasn't that bad at our house. Some of our neighbors have major damage from trees on their roofs. We had the eye right around dawn. Wednesday was spent mostly indoors due to continued rain and wind, but not as bad as before. By Wednesday afternoon, the kids and in-laws were packed up, and with the help of extended family in the area, got their damaged vehicles dropped off at locations where insurance processors could deal with them, and relocated at a home with generator power until Justin and some of the Missouri folks could come get them. They are all fine, but I bet that baby has an aversion to the beach, and even Alabama, after this. Thanks to our deep porches and good cross-ventilation, we were pretty comfortable until late Thursday. Then the air stayed warm and humid and still. Ugh! I got reacquainted with the sterno stove, mostly to heat water for coffee. We also have a couple of wind-up radios. I have adapters and inverters to charge or run some devices plugged into our truck. We're on a water well with an electric pump. We took turns lugging water from horse troughs into the house to flush the commodes. Part of local hurricane prep is "the first 72 is on you." This means that the authorities expect people to mostly fend for themselves for 72 hours until they can get disaster assistance infrastructure in place. It doesn't help when the silly storm can't decide where to land. Friday night the last of our ice had melted. By yesterday (Saturday) I had given up that any food in the fridge or freezer was still safe to eat. That all got pitched in the trash. We were down to our last couple of gallons of drinking water. Frankly, spending Tuesday at the condo used up time that normally I would have taken to do better storm prep - like washing some clothes! Anyway, more local family came to the rescue with more water and "stuff." About 5 minutes before they showed up, the power came back on! Yay! We used some of the water they brought to prime the pump on the well. Most of the stores in the area are open and the traffic lights are back working, though some roads have serious debris problems. Shelves are being restocked. Today I replenished some food and supplies. Tomorrow I'll get that laundry done. Whew! Well that did go long. Sorry. I guess Sally isn't the only windy one in these here parts. BTW, my brother lives in Pensacola near downtown. They did not get flooded, but they had major tree damage and some roof leaks. Their power was restored late Friday. Shutting up now...
