I Like Ike!

I guess I'll give you the highlights of Hurricane Ike and hope it is of interest to someone. We went into this disaster without health insurance because Sterling had only been at his new job for a few weeks. I was about 11 weeks along at the beginning of this, so I was still morning sick a little bit, my nose was so sensitive I couldn't open my spice cupboard without gagging. I did every bit of our laundry and all our dishes in anticipation of the power going out. We had paper dishes/utensils, snack food, a pot of rice, bread, peanut butter, 4 cases of 24 1-liter bottles of water AND 6 extra gallons, Gatorade, granola bars, canned chicken and dog food (for the dog). We had bought some little toys for the kids to keep them busy over the weekend while the power was out.

Friday, Sept. 11 2008
The hurricane begins. The power dies around 8:00. It gets darker and darker and louder and louder. The wind through our backyard is bending 200-foot pine and oak trees about 45 degrees in big gusts. We have a big picture window in our master bedroom so the parents sleep in the hallway, the kids don't make a peep. The hallway floor is hard and the wind is loud, so we don't get a lot of sleep. In fact, I don't think Sterling slept at all, he was patrolling the house all night. I took a Unisom.

Saturday, September 12--If it's yellow let it mellow
We wake up to a tropical storm. Water in the streets and fallen trees everywhere. We see cars driving down the main road behind us, and I wonder where they are going. Do they know something we don't? Do they really need gasoline that badly? What? Once the rain stops, we go on a family walk, the weather is beautiful. All our neighbors are outside cooking on their grills or staring at the holes in their homes. The damage is all from falling trees. One house had an entire corner of an upstairs bedroom sheared off by a pine. For most of the morning the entrance to our subdivision was blocked by a huge tree trunk across the road. The fire department came through and helped people chop down trees and remove road blockages.
What we ate (this is the main source of entertainment throughout the day): Deli sandwiches and leftover rice/cinnamon/ sugar mixture and cereal with lukewarm milk. All our windows were open so we could smell the delicious grilling of steaks and chicken from the neighborhood. We weren't sure about the water safety or pressure, so we didn't flush any toilets.

Sunday, September 13--You can't get a charcoal grill for love or money
No one slept last night because of the electrical storm. It was at least four hours of what looked and sounded like a German blitz. Yes folks, that makes it two nights in a row that my husband has missed sleep. The kids had a great time running up and down our hallway between their rooms and our room. If you looked outside without blinking during a lightning flash, you felt blinded. I normally like electrical storms, but this stopped being fun at about 3 AM. We woke up without power still, but I discover that we have hot running water! There's as much traffic out our window as a normal day, so we decided to go out in the car to see what we could see. A local grocery store was open, but no gas stations were. We had a full tank, so we decided since we had used up fuel to get out here, we should stock up on some stuff. Shopping was surreal. I guess they had generators to power the bare minimum of light. So what was once a bright well-stocked American supermarket looked like something from Soviet Russia. Dark, empty, with long lines. Except the employees were smiling. Only 25 people were allowed in the store at a time. All the produce and meat sections were empty and dark. The dairy and frozen aisles were blocked off with pallets and caution tape. We got unsalted pretzels, pudding, ice (free, 2 per customer), fruit snacks, a little more water, and some soda pop. They accepted credit cards, but I don't think they would have taken a $100 bill as it was too big to break. What we ate: Granola bars, apples, trail mix, chicken salad (after which we threw away the mayo), pudding. Again accompanied by the mouthwatering smells of charred meat.

Monday, Sept. 14 --What if the power comes on again?
Finally got a good night's sleep. Still no power. We had kept thinking power would come right back so we hadn't gotten rid of our meat. Well, today we needed to get rid of our meat. The garbage had been picked up this morning so we had rotting meat smell in our can in the garage for another week. It got so bad we had to put it out by the curb. Our neighbors loved that. We couldn't put it in the back yard because we have a dog. Our fridge and freezer smelled so bad I couldn't open it without retching into the sink. Sterling's office is shut down, so we all hang out today. I was dying for something warm in my belly this morning so I made some instant oatmeal with our HOT RUNNING WATER. Without this, I would've left for Uncle Mark's by now and just left our dog in the backyard I guess. Maybe left Sterling home too. We only have one car though. Besides all these reasons, I had just spent 4 weeks staying in other people's homes without my husband. Doing that again wasn't that appealing. Plus gas prices were super high, and what if the power came back on again?

Tuesday, Sept. 15 --Fruit snacks don't grow mold, do they?
The problem with 72-hour kits is that 72 hours is about how long you can stand to eat it. The Wal-mart next to us opens up, and although they have ice, they don't have coolers. We don't have anything left to cool anyway. We watched On the Waterfront for an hour on our laptop's battery.What we ate:Our 4-year old fruit snacks for lunch. The trailmix has some nuts in it that taste like sand. Sterling tries to eat Campbell's thick and chunky chicken noodle straight from the can. That put a damper on the evening. I tried to use some of our cheddar cheese and a can of refried beans to make a bean dip. We had olives too. I thought that was pretty yummy.

Wednesday, Sept. 16-- One flew over the cuckoo's nest
Sterling goes back to work, and I'm alone. I sing "Five Little Ducks", "5 Little Monkeys", and "10 Little Indians" about fifty times each. That makes one thousand little ducks, monkeys and indians, two hyper kids and one crazy mom. We eat instant oatmeal again. Not very filling, but it's warm. Sterling took the laptop to work to charge it. We had purchased some cups of soup for lunches and dinners. I knew the temperature of our water was technically not hot enough to cook them properly, but we were so hungry and sick of peanut butter. Even the kids stopped eating sandwiches. So I said a prayer over the cups of soup asking a special blessing that they would cook enough to be edible. And Voila! Lukewarm pasta and broth! It was like mana. By the end of the week, we still had no power, but the McDonald's in the Walmart had opened so we had that Thursday and Friday for dinner. Warm food and cold drinks. It was great. I will forever love McDonald's because of this week. Mail was coming daily, people had put their tree refuse by the side of the road to be picked up (some piles were bigger than an SUV). We were technically getting the right amount of calories but not enough protein and veggies so we were feeling hungry and listless. We bought a box of 10 puzzles at Walmart and we've done a puzzle almost every day. Sterling gets home from work around 6 and it gets dark at 7, we turn on a battery-powered lamp to get ready for bed and Sterling reads with a flashlight while I conk right out. The weather was cool all week, so we didn't really miss the AC. By Sunday it was 90 degrees every day though. Oh, and this is only the first week.