|
|
|
The Rude Guide to Surviving a Hurricane October, 2003 When Hurricane Isabelle rolled around in October, 2003 we thought we were prepared: we had candles, food, and firewood stacked up. We had hoped to have the backup generator in place and ready to go, but unfortunately it hadn't arrived yet. The day before the hurricane, we hurriedly stuffed outside equipment under the deck and "bottoned down the hatches". Our only concern was the Pip Squeak, the little 4 week old undersize orphan kitten that still needed to be fed every 3 hours, and kept warm. The morning of the hurricane started out rainy, but not too bad. We had twelve cats and kittens scheduled for spay/neuter surgeries, and the vets were willing to do the surgeries so we dropped them off at the clinic and settled in to wait for the storm. The wind picked up mid afternoon... right about the time the dos got really bored and wanted to go out and play. The vet clinic called and said all the surgeries were done but they would hold the furballs overnite because of the rain. Around 4 o'clock things got a little hairy -- the cable went out. About an hour later the power went out. That's when we started thinking we should have started on the generator project a little earlier. We made it through the night unscathed, although we could hear the wind and rain blowing through the trees. By morning it seemed the most damage was a few tree limbs in the yard and the neighbors had one tree down (of course that tree did land across the road, meaning to get in or out of our street, people took a short detour across our yard. Although the electricity was out, and on a good day we have limited cell phone reception, we discovered the old fashioned phones still worked (yes, we still had a phone that had a cord to connect it to the wall) We started checking in with people to see how people in other parts of the area fared. Apparently we were one of the few houses with an old fashioned phone. Our next concern was keeping the Pip Squeak warm -- we didn't have the option of "nuking" a water bottle for her, so we started up the car and put the heater on full blast with the kitten under the vent. At least she seemed to enhoy the blow dryer effect. One the Pipper was fed and snuggled in we set off to pick up the furballs that spent the night at the clinic. We got out of our neighborhood with out too much trouble, however getting to the main roads made us feel like the proverbial mouse in a maze. Trees were down across power lines and roads all over the area. We slowly made our way towerd the clinic until we got to "The Bridge". This bridge is a narrow, spooky creepy one lane bridge over the Patuxent River in the middle of dark creepy woods. Local legends call it the Goatman Bridge. We just call it the Creepy Bridge.  The Creepy Bridge We made it about 10 feet across before the water started coming into the car through the air vents. Momentum got us maybe another 2 feet. At that point it wasn't looking good that we would make it the rest of the way across, which was another 30 feet. We also knew it would be another 50 feet before we had cell phone reception. As bleak as it was, we figured at least we aren't floating down the river. Then it happened, our 4,000 pound heavy weight Chevy Suburban started floating down the river. At least there was a slight hope of floating to the other side and getting out at the next road crossing about a mile down the river.  The Side of the Bridge We Wanted to Be On By now the water inside the car was up to the top of the seats. Bob decided to climb out of the window and try to "push" the car across the river. I was supposed to "steer" it with the steering wheel. From what I could recall in ther few minutes before we turned the Suburban into a boat, there was no James Bond rudder like attachment to steer the car through water. Before I had a chance to question this, Bob had slipped into the water and started to make his way towards the backend of the car. At least he was able to stop the downstream momentum of the car before he ran out of energy. Eventually we made it far enough for the front wheels of the Suburban to touch down on the other side. Then came the task of pushing it up hill to keep the back end from floating down the river. Just as Bob got all four tires on semi solid ground, a couple of guys with pick up trucks showed up on the side of the river we were trying to get to. They had come down to see how high the water was and if any idiots had tryed to make it across. We were able to deal with them laughing at us a lot better when they said they had a tow rope and could pull us up onto dryer land. Bob just had to wade to the front of the Suburban, and hook it up. (At least the bumper didn't fly off when they started pulling.) Once the Suburban was out of the water, we opened the doors and watched "the gusher" of water that drained back out of the car for a good 30 minutes while we figured out what to do. About that time, the cell phone rang. (The guys had actually pulled the car far enough up the road that we could get cell phone reception) It was one of our volunteers, who was bored at her place with no power and was wondering what we were up to. When I told her what had happened, she jumped in her car to come down, make fun of us and to document the whole endeavor with pictures. (Fortunately, the pics were lost at some point) Upon arrival, she wasted no time starting the jokes, until she swatted at a bug on her arm, and realized it was a bee. The bee promptly stung her. Guess she could have told us she was allergic to bee stings a little earlier. It also would have been really helpful if she had an epi-pen with her. We decided to rearrange our priorities with me taking her to the hospital and Bob and his new guy friends working on getting the Suburban running. Like most of the area, the hospital also had no power (or cable), but was running on generators. Fortunately, bee sting allergies are considered pretty serious, so the nurse took her back quickly. In the meantime, it had been close to three hours since the Pip Squeak had been fed and warmed up. With no word from Bob, I figured I was the most likely canidate to make the way back to the ranch for orphan duty. I sent a note back to the treatment area and headed back towards home. Turns out a few more trees fell while we were gone. After two detours, and a round through the next county south of us, I finally made it back to the ranch to find the Pip Squeak snuggled into her blankie and waiting for lunch. By then Bob checked in to report that the Suburban was running. (From the sounds it was making the definition of "running" was debatable) He was heading on his way to pick up the cats at the clinic (remember the reason we headed out to begin with), and I was heading back to pick up my friend at the hospital. Turns out my friend was given a shot of Benedryl and released from the hospital while I was gone. This would have been fine, except she didn't want to sit and wait in the waiting room, and decided to start walking towards the main street. Unfortunately, the Benedryl made her woozy enough that she wasn't sure which way was the main street and went the wrong way. By the time I figured out what happened, she had walked quite a way into the surronding neighborhood. With everyone and everyfur finally retrieved and heading back towards the ranch, we moved onto the next problem: lunch for the humans....which at our house was pretty slim pickings. The power eventually came back on around 2:30 the following morning. We realized this when all the overhead lights came on and almost blinded us. The cable came back within a couple of hours after the power. The suburban took 3 weeks to totally dry out, and never did run the same again. Overall, we survived Hurricane Isabelle with relatively few problems. However, the next time Bob even thinks about trying to drive through even a big mud puddle, he will be in trouble. 
|