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Well, I am finally back. The past week and a half has been complete hell. I'll post about the events before the Derecho later, because I'll have to upload pics. This post is dedicated to the Derecho which swept across the US on June 29th causing widespread power outages during extreme heat. Since I live here in Virginia, it will be about how the Virginia government responded to this emergency.
On June 29th, we woke up to our youngest daughter vomiting. She was taking antibiotics which caused the vomiting. I had to call the doctor for a change in medicine. Ever since the Norovirus, she has gotten hysterical every time she feels the slightest bit nauseated, which happens every time she gets motion sickness in the car. So we had to go pick up a new prescription. We thought, "Today is not going to be a good day." Later that evening, I was making party decorations on the computer for my second youngest son's third birthday on the 30th. Nathan was playing Starhawk. The kids were spread out through the house playing. Nathan's mother came in and told us that the Winchester station had broadcast an emergency alert about a storm coming in with 80+ mph winds. So I looked up the NOAA. All they had was some cryptic message with no explanation. So I looked at other stations websites. Nothing. So I went back to the NOAA site, copied their cryptic message and pasted it in their search box. That brought up the emergency alert about the Derecho which they stated was to be broadcast immediately. Yet only one station had even announced it. Going by the NOAA's information, we had two hours before the storm hit. Nathan, my oldest daughter, and I immediately set to work. We brought all my potted plants in from the deck. We had to get the outside furniture, round up the chickens, pick up all the toys and bikes from the yard. My oldest daughter filled empty gallon jugs with water. By then we were really sweaty- it was horribly hot outside. So we took showers as fast as possible. Nathan went around unplugging all the electronics. By then we could hear thunder in the distance and see lightning. If only we knew what was ahead, we could have done more.
The TV went out so we didn't know what was happening. The weather radio was static. We felt completely alone. Then Nathan said, "Maybe I should turn off any unnecessary lights." The moment the words left his mouth, the power went out. The kids started screeching in fear. When the power goes out in the country, it is completely dark. The power blinked on and off multiple times and browned out really bad before going completely out. It was 9:30 pm. We got everyone to huddle in the hall together. Then the wind started to come through. Let me tell you, it was bad. It reminded me of the tornadoes I had been through while living in Missouri. It sounded like something was trying to claw and rip the roof off. I kept looking at the roof, expecting it to fly off. I was holding my youngest child and he just held on to me and didn't make a peep. We all just sat there, eyes wide, listening to the storm. By then the lightning was flashing constantly. I don't think there was a break between flashes. We heard all sorts of odd noises outside. We couldn't hear the chickens so they must have been so scared that they were actually quiet. We had no idea if they were okay or what was being damaged. It started to get really hot in the house. It seemed like an eternity before it calmed down enough outside for us to venture out of the hallway. We checked on the chickens and they were okay. We checked the weather radio and it was still out. We opened the windows to let in the cool night air. After the Derecho passed through we were left with a nice breeze. We all just climbed in bed and went to sleep. We thought the power would be back up the next day. How wrong we were.
Saturday morning we all woke up much earlier than we normally do, but that was because it was already suffocatingly hot at 7:30 in the morning. My eyes went to the ceiling fan, but it was still not moving. No power. We got some of our water we had stored in the basement. With no power, we could not flush the toilet normally or run any water. We do not have an emergency hand pump on our well, which is something I had wanted. We also did not have a generator, something else I have wanted. So we were screwed from the start. The weather radio was still out. My cell phone could not find a tower. Our landline phone was dead. We had no way to contact the outside world to find out what was going on. It started to get quite hot inside the house. While it was still tolerable, we let the birthday boy open his presents. By afternoon it became unbearable. The phone finally came back on. No, not a cordless phone. A corded phone that keeps you tethered to the wall. We called the power company but only got a generic message saying the power was out (no shit) and that they were working on it. We called the non-emergency police and they said there was no shelters at the time. So we called Walmart. They had only just got their power on and they said they would be open in a couple of hours.
Meanwhile, we melted from the heat. We wiped the kids down with water to try to help cool them down and made sure they drank plenty of fluids, but it was not enough. Everyone just sat around because it was too hot to do anything. We also found out that it takes two gallons of water to flush the toilet- one doesn't cut it. We only flushed if someone did a #2, which some of the kids started doing thanks to the intense heat. I didn't feel clean enough with just using Germ-X, so I used some of the water to wash my hands. I hate to feel dirty, especially my hands.
One thing that had happened two days earlier was our van would not start. We had to get one of the neighbors to jump start it. We replaced the battery, which took $120 out of our pocket. But with our luck it wasn't the battery alone. The alternator is also taking a shit. I knew it. So it has been giving us grief. We had just found out it was the alternator on Friday. I was going to talk to my Dad because it really takes two people to change the alternator and we don't even have the tools to do it. But this happened.
As soon as we knew Walmart was open, we jumped in the van and headed there to get cool for at least a little while. We still had no idea how bad everything was. Walmart had lost all the food in coolers and freezers in that short of a time. They had a truck which had just arrived so they were restocking what they could. We listened to others talking and talked to a few people. Almost everyone had lost power in the county. The hospital had just gotten their power restored, but they had generators in the meantime. The police station was running on generators. No one knew anything about the power situation because no one could get through. We bought lots more water and ice. Thankfully there was that available. We picked up some supplies, but hoping the power would be on soon. We went by CVS Pharmacy to ask about our youngest daughter's antibiotics. I knew it was probably dead from the heat, and the pharmacist agreed. I was going to have to get another prescription. We decided to treat the kids to Burger King. They had gotten a truck so they had fresh food, which they said they were running out of fast. I hadn't been able to bake a birthday cake with no power so we had bought cupcakes at Walmart. We were trying to prolong the AC as long as possible. But we eventually had to go back.
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