Survivor- Tacky Bora
Oct. 16th, 2006 11:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThe quick version: We're fine. This entry will be a work in progress, so check back for more details on the "October Surprise" Buffalo snowstorm of ought-six.
----
Saturday (aka "Day Three")- 10:30 a.m.- the employee break room at Eleanor's store
This is the first heat and electric light we've experienced since sometime Thursday evening. Rumors of the "October crush" snowstorm, which had just begun in earnest when I last posted, turned out to be greatly exaggerated. On the way-too-small side.
This is no Katrina, no tsunami, not even a devestating single-family fire, but it's by far the worst we've ever lived through, and that counts 15 years ago when our previous home, hit with similar weather conditions at the end of a winter, went five days with no power or heat and became known just generically as "The Ice Storm."
Ang Lee's got nothing on this one.
----
Emily reported the power outage with her usual announcement- "This doesn't look good"- after we'd all turned in early Thursday night for lack of much better else to do with the world seemingly ending outside. The crunches of tree branches and the mix of explosions- many of them the continuing thundersnow, which followed the white lightning bursts, while others, more silent, were bluish bursts in the night which turned out to be the sight of transformers blowing themselves out all over the area.
By 6 or so that first morning, the temperature in the house was down to 60 degrees F (about 16C), the snow accumulation was up to somewhere between 1 and 2 feet, and hundreds of years of foliage were lying dead in yards and streets for as far as the eye could see.
At first, that wasn't damn far at all. I don't think we saw anyone brave or foolish enough to try getting out, and plows certainly weren't getting in until the front-end loaders had gone ahead of them to clear debris. Eventually, we cleared a path to our neighbor Sally's side door, which I promptly named the William J. LePetomaine Thruway in honor of the "shitload of dimes" scene in Blazing Saddles.
Sally, too, lacked heat and power but she has a gas stove and could at least boil water. From her yard and then window, I could see far worse than our own view had presented. Gorgeous trees in her own yard- a magnolia and pear among them- snapped like toys. Down the street beyond her, trees probably dating to the days of the Seneca Nation, many still bearing gorgeous fall colors, lay dead in the road- some, quite possibly, with live power lines tangled in them.
Things could have been even worse, though. Our neighbor on the other side was stuck at home alone, unable to get to the hospital where her husband- a long-time drinker who we were never fond of but for whom she was Saint Elizabeth- having just been taken off dialysis and put into final hospice on Tuesday. I have no idea if he's passed, but I do know there's a good chance she won't be there to know.
We were luckier. We bought a near-barren lot 12 years ago, and most of the trees we added were young and supple enough to snap back- for the most part. A beautiful, if somewhat wild, Russian olive in our back yard is probably history, and a redwood in the front isn't nearly as red or as woody. But most of our trees, at least, did okay, and with a little trimming and a little love will probably live on.
----
As often happens around here, humor got us through what would've otherwise been Stress City. My first take on the situation, after seeing no plows and no linemen anywhere near our house, was to blame the government. Our newly-elected town supervisor is an engineering professor and a pretty major control freak. We'd freaked a bit a month or so ago when, in response to a rat infestation in parts of the town, he sent all town residents a rat control brochure with helpful hints on how to cut down on their activity. Fully illustrated with pictures of the ugly buggers and the bad things not to do.
So I got off the first good line of the day by announcing I'd heard on the radio, "Satish announces win-win solution to town's problems by ordering the rats to eat all the snow."
Real radio was a touchy proposition. Naturally, we were totally unprepared for this in mid-October, with barely enough batteries to run a single flashlight. Em has a goofy radio that operates on AA batteries- all we had except for two dying D-cells in the flashlight- and those got pillaged from the digital camera so, sorry, no pictures. The radio gets FM and three shortwave bands, which is really useful if you want the BBC's take on your freaking storm. Getting AM meant, until just now, going out to one of the snowbound cars, but from those runs we got the news.
260,000 homes without power in the area. Our town alone, estimated to have 42,000 homes, was powerless in more than 90 percent of them. A driving ban went into effect and still hasn't been lifted, not that it's stopping anyone, including us, from driving through it. Stoplights are mostly out, and not everybody has yet to get the memo about treating unpowered stoplights as four-way stop signs.
The tree devestation is unprecedented. We lived through a similar swath of devestation in 1991 back in Rochester, another "perfect storm" that produced routine snow in Buffalo, routine rain in Syracuse but a massive pile of dead foliage on top of us. That was five days with no power, heat or even hot water because our cellar flooded. (We had gas heat there, as we do here, but furnaces need electricity to run the blower; hot water heaters run independently, but the flooded cellar in '91 put out the pilot on the water so we were filthy as well as cold.)
At least this time we have our hot water, which is (a) keeping us clean, (b) keeping our fish from freezing to death and (c) helping to heat the home in a minimalist sort of way with troughs of hot H2O in the sinks and tub. Not that the fish are safe; the cats love to use the tank as a staging area to inspect the blowing leaves and birds outside, and Biggsy's come close to falling into it at least twice that we've seen. This has led to one of the many moments of levity to have kept us going these past few days- picturing the damage report we're going to turn into the insurance company, FEMA or whoever when the dust all settles:
Me: "Damage? Let's see. One redwood, one Russian olive, miscellaneous shrubs, spoiled food, and three dead fish."
Adjuster: "Are the fish included in the spoiled food?"
Me: "Not yet."
----
Reading material has been limited. We'd heard about a cool author on NPR, Karen Russell, who did a collection of short stories entitled St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. A lovely author, don't get me wrong, but when your house is down to 57 degrees at night with six potentially feral animals in the house (and I'm counting my daughter in that), you might not want to spend your time reading stories about ghosts and encounters with a succubus.
John Irving's latest, Until I Find You, has held up a bit better, but between the cold Scandinavian stops, ancient churches and typically-weird Irving characters, I think I need something new.
----
Other levity:
We live right off the 290, where the major line of transmission towers, carrying the massive power of the Falls to the rest of the area, lies between us and the road. By Friday, it was quite common to hear the sound of helicopters doing aerial damage surveillance. One of them, it turned out, carried our beloved Republican governor. At his side? Who else, but the fellow Republican in the deepest of doo-doo right now, Foley-connected Congressman Tom Reynolds. These idiots will do anything for a spin. Naturally, I spun right back, suggesting that Tom was up there with high-powered binoculars looking for hot teenage boys to bring home to DC. Our neighbor across the street, a sweet thing but nobody to trifle with, picked right up on it: "He's looking for boys who work out," she said. "And of course they'd be out shoveling, wouldn't they?"
Next door, meanwhile, Sally endured about 24 hours of her daughter and three grandkids- ranging from about 10 to a thoroughly Goth 16 year old- invading her home making her totally crazy. By the first morning, she was answering her phone, "Armageddon Central!" and practically applauded when Leslie's boyfriend hauled all the rest of them back out to his house, where there was at least a fireplace.
We're taking turns here at Eleanor's store, wiping down wet furniture and shopvac-cing massive flooding on the floors and carpets. At least there's heat and power, if no wireless. I'll try Panera after here to see how they are.
Our home time's been, if not fun, at least peaceful. We've had a faux pendulum clock in our living room since forever- it was a wedding present from I forget who- and its constant tick-tock, usually lost in the hubbub of a busy home, has been a constant in our ears and hearts the past two days. So has been the love of some furry animals who always seem to know when to curl up with, next to or even on you. At one point yesterday, both dogs got up on the bed and just rolled around in a display of pure unleashed enthusiasm for close to half an hour. To them, I'm sure, this is just an adventure. And they're still getting fed, as we are if somewhat erratically, so I'm sure to them it all makes sense.
Monday morning- 11:15- the land of actual wireless at Wegmans across the car park from Eleanor's store.
Not all that much more to report. 100,000 customers are back online. We aren't among them as of now. The weather wavers from cloudy- risking rain/flooding and limiting daytime sunshine but insulating the atmosphere at night- to brilliant sunshine, warming our days but, as this morning, getting things pretty frosty at 3 a.m. Eleanor's greenhouse regularly breaks 70 in the sun, though, so we've been taking turns out there a fair amount.
We could still be looking at a powerless life until next Sunday. The other area utility has an 800 number to estimate your uptime by your account number, but ours, sadly, doesn't. No sign of power crews in our immediate neighborhood, and we can see downed power lines three backyards over.
I restocked the propane for our gas grill at the Wilson Farms at NFB/Willow Ridge. Outside was a utility worker in a National Grid station wagon, who couldn't find his car keys. I started thinking Dumb Utility Worker thoughts about him until I saw the Massachusetts plates on the car. Then I just about hugged the guy.
The driving ban is still on, not that anyone's paying attention to it. People do seem to have the four-way-stop deal down better now, though. Lots of common sense has gone down with the thermometers, as broadcasters are constantly warning people not to run generators or gas grills or propane stoves inside their homes. Earlier, we also had a guy on the radio who was talking about chain saw common sense: "If you've never used a chain saw before, it'd be a good idea to get help from someone who has." Right, I replied to nobody in particular, this is probably a good time to stay away from anyplace called "Lefty's Tree Service."
There's nothing like 50-degree homes to bring people together. We've laughed for months about this one couple from around the corner from us. Every night they go walking, and every night the husband is walking a good ten feet in front of the wife. We know it's not her style, since we also see her walking with a girlfriend during the day, perfectly side-by-side. Yesterday morning, Eleanor noticed that 10 Foot Guy was only walking maybe a yard in front of the missus. Careful, dude, I thought. By the time the power comes back you two might actually be talking to one another.
I need to find some open banks and a post office. Supposedly mail delivery resumes today; I'll believe that when I see the "neither snow nor rain" legend fall off the side of the Farley building on 8th Avenue in Manhattan.
This will probably be it for awhile, though I am taking down the phone post number and will try to update that way.
----
Saturday (aka "Day Three")- 10:30 a.m.- the employee break room at Eleanor's store
This is the first heat and electric light we've experienced since sometime Thursday evening. Rumors of the "October crush" snowstorm, which had just begun in earnest when I last posted, turned out to be greatly exaggerated. On the way-too-small side.
This is no Katrina, no tsunami, not even a devestating single-family fire, but it's by far the worst we've ever lived through, and that counts 15 years ago when our previous home, hit with similar weather conditions at the end of a winter, went five days with no power or heat and became known just generically as "The Ice Storm."
Ang Lee's got nothing on this one.
----
Emily reported the power outage with her usual announcement- "This doesn't look good"- after we'd all turned in early Thursday night for lack of much better else to do with the world seemingly ending outside. The crunches of tree branches and the mix of explosions- many of them the continuing thundersnow, which followed the white lightning bursts, while others, more silent, were bluish bursts in the night which turned out to be the sight of transformers blowing themselves out all over the area.
By 6 or so that first morning, the temperature in the house was down to 60 degrees F (about 16C), the snow accumulation was up to somewhere between 1 and 2 feet, and hundreds of years of foliage were lying dead in yards and streets for as far as the eye could see.
At first, that wasn't damn far at all. I don't think we saw anyone brave or foolish enough to try getting out, and plows certainly weren't getting in until the front-end loaders had gone ahead of them to clear debris. Eventually, we cleared a path to our neighbor Sally's side door, which I promptly named the William J. LePetomaine Thruway in honor of the "shitload of dimes" scene in Blazing Saddles.
Sally, too, lacked heat and power but she has a gas stove and could at least boil water. From her yard and then window, I could see far worse than our own view had presented. Gorgeous trees in her own yard- a magnolia and pear among them- snapped like toys. Down the street beyond her, trees probably dating to the days of the Seneca Nation, many still bearing gorgeous fall colors, lay dead in the road- some, quite possibly, with live power lines tangled in them.
Things could have been even worse, though. Our neighbor on the other side was stuck at home alone, unable to get to the hospital where her husband- a long-time drinker who we were never fond of but for whom she was Saint Elizabeth- having just been taken off dialysis and put into final hospice on Tuesday. I have no idea if he's passed, but I do know there's a good chance she won't be there to know.
We were luckier. We bought a near-barren lot 12 years ago, and most of the trees we added were young and supple enough to snap back- for the most part. A beautiful, if somewhat wild, Russian olive in our back yard is probably history, and a redwood in the front isn't nearly as red or as woody. But most of our trees, at least, did okay, and with a little trimming and a little love will probably live on.
----
As often happens around here, humor got us through what would've otherwise been Stress City. My first take on the situation, after seeing no plows and no linemen anywhere near our house, was to blame the government. Our newly-elected town supervisor is an engineering professor and a pretty major control freak. We'd freaked a bit a month or so ago when, in response to a rat infestation in parts of the town, he sent all town residents a rat control brochure with helpful hints on how to cut down on their activity. Fully illustrated with pictures of the ugly buggers and the bad things not to do.
So I got off the first good line of the day by announcing I'd heard on the radio, "Satish announces win-win solution to town's problems by ordering the rats to eat all the snow."
Real radio was a touchy proposition. Naturally, we were totally unprepared for this in mid-October, with barely enough batteries to run a single flashlight. Em has a goofy radio that operates on AA batteries- all we had except for two dying D-cells in the flashlight- and those got pillaged from the digital camera so, sorry, no pictures. The radio gets FM and three shortwave bands, which is really useful if you want the BBC's take on your freaking storm. Getting AM meant, until just now, going out to one of the snowbound cars, but from those runs we got the news.
260,000 homes without power in the area. Our town alone, estimated to have 42,000 homes, was powerless in more than 90 percent of them. A driving ban went into effect and still hasn't been lifted, not that it's stopping anyone, including us, from driving through it. Stoplights are mostly out, and not everybody has yet to get the memo about treating unpowered stoplights as four-way stop signs.
The tree devestation is unprecedented. We lived through a similar swath of devestation in 1991 back in Rochester, another "perfect storm" that produced routine snow in Buffalo, routine rain in Syracuse but a massive pile of dead foliage on top of us. That was five days with no power, heat or even hot water because our cellar flooded. (We had gas heat there, as we do here, but furnaces need electricity to run the blower; hot water heaters run independently, but the flooded cellar in '91 put out the pilot on the water so we were filthy as well as cold.)
At least this time we have our hot water, which is (a) keeping us clean, (b) keeping our fish from freezing to death and (c) helping to heat the home in a minimalist sort of way with troughs of hot H2O in the sinks and tub. Not that the fish are safe; the cats love to use the tank as a staging area to inspect the blowing leaves and birds outside, and Biggsy's come close to falling into it at least twice that we've seen. This has led to one of the many moments of levity to have kept us going these past few days- picturing the damage report we're going to turn into the insurance company, FEMA or whoever when the dust all settles:
Me: "Damage? Let's see. One redwood, one Russian olive, miscellaneous shrubs, spoiled food, and three dead fish."
Adjuster: "Are the fish included in the spoiled food?"
Me: "Not yet."
----
Reading material has been limited. We'd heard about a cool author on NPR, Karen Russell, who did a collection of short stories entitled St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves. A lovely author, don't get me wrong, but when your house is down to 57 degrees at night with six potentially feral animals in the house (and I'm counting my daughter in that), you might not want to spend your time reading stories about ghosts and encounters with a succubus.
John Irving's latest, Until I Find You, has held up a bit better, but between the cold Scandinavian stops, ancient churches and typically-weird Irving characters, I think I need something new.
----
Other levity:
We live right off the 290, where the major line of transmission towers, carrying the massive power of the Falls to the rest of the area, lies between us and the road. By Friday, it was quite common to hear the sound of helicopters doing aerial damage surveillance. One of them, it turned out, carried our beloved Republican governor. At his side? Who else, but the fellow Republican in the deepest of doo-doo right now, Foley-connected Congressman Tom Reynolds. These idiots will do anything for a spin. Naturally, I spun right back, suggesting that Tom was up there with high-powered binoculars looking for hot teenage boys to bring home to DC. Our neighbor across the street, a sweet thing but nobody to trifle with, picked right up on it: "He's looking for boys who work out," she said. "And of course they'd be out shoveling, wouldn't they?"
Next door, meanwhile, Sally endured about 24 hours of her daughter and three grandkids- ranging from about 10 to a thoroughly Goth 16 year old- invading her home making her totally crazy. By the first morning, she was answering her phone, "Armageddon Central!" and practically applauded when Leslie's boyfriend hauled all the rest of them back out to his house, where there was at least a fireplace.
We're taking turns here at Eleanor's store, wiping down wet furniture and shopvac-cing massive flooding on the floors and carpets. At least there's heat and power, if no wireless. I'll try Panera after here to see how they are.
Our home time's been, if not fun, at least peaceful. We've had a faux pendulum clock in our living room since forever- it was a wedding present from I forget who- and its constant tick-tock, usually lost in the hubbub of a busy home, has been a constant in our ears and hearts the past two days. So has been the love of some furry animals who always seem to know when to curl up with, next to or even on you. At one point yesterday, both dogs got up on the bed and just rolled around in a display of pure unleashed enthusiasm for close to half an hour. To them, I'm sure, this is just an adventure. And they're still getting fed, as we are if somewhat erratically, so I'm sure to them it all makes sense.
Monday morning- 11:15- the land of actual wireless at Wegmans across the car park from Eleanor's store.
Not all that much more to report. 100,000 customers are back online. We aren't among them as of now. The weather wavers from cloudy- risking rain/flooding and limiting daytime sunshine but insulating the atmosphere at night- to brilliant sunshine, warming our days but, as this morning, getting things pretty frosty at 3 a.m. Eleanor's greenhouse regularly breaks 70 in the sun, though, so we've been taking turns out there a fair amount.
We could still be looking at a powerless life until next Sunday. The other area utility has an 800 number to estimate your uptime by your account number, but ours, sadly, doesn't. No sign of power crews in our immediate neighborhood, and we can see downed power lines three backyards over.
I restocked the propane for our gas grill at the Wilson Farms at NFB/Willow Ridge. Outside was a utility worker in a National Grid station wagon, who couldn't find his car keys. I started thinking Dumb Utility Worker thoughts about him until I saw the Massachusetts plates on the car. Then I just about hugged the guy.
The driving ban is still on, not that anyone's paying attention to it. People do seem to have the four-way-stop deal down better now, though. Lots of common sense has gone down with the thermometers, as broadcasters are constantly warning people not to run generators or gas grills or propane stoves inside their homes. Earlier, we also had a guy on the radio who was talking about chain saw common sense: "If you've never used a chain saw before, it'd be a good idea to get help from someone who has." Right, I replied to nobody in particular, this is probably a good time to stay away from anyplace called "Lefty's Tree Service."
There's nothing like 50-degree homes to bring people together. We've laughed for months about this one couple from around the corner from us. Every night they go walking, and every night the husband is walking a good ten feet in front of the wife. We know it's not her style, since we also see her walking with a girlfriend during the day, perfectly side-by-side. Yesterday morning, Eleanor noticed that 10 Foot Guy was only walking maybe a yard in front of the missus. Careful, dude, I thought. By the time the power comes back you two might actually be talking to one another.
I need to find some open banks and a post office. Supposedly mail delivery resumes today; I'll believe that when I see the "neither snow nor rain" legend fall off the side of the Farley building on 8th Avenue in Manhattan.
This will probably be it for awhile, though I am taking down the phone post number and will try to update that way.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 04:15 pm (UTC)It's been a long while, but I am sure you've been keeping up with the 'business' part of my life in the news. Last night at 10 was the last chance to vote to ratify or not...I've heard nothing yet.
Family life is a juggle and a half between three different schedules, pretty much two different lives and of course, work.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 06:21 pm (UTC):)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-16 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-17 03:50 am (UTC)thanks again for the voice post!! it really was good to hear your voice. hope y'all keep your spirits up and that your power is restored sooner than later!!