Afterwards

Well! That was an adventure!

My area got hit unexpectedly hard by the hurricane. Last night, on what would have been our 4th night without electricity, the lights finally came back on. Many people in the area still don't have power and won't for some days yet. The widespread flooding combined with high winds meant that an incredible number of trees uprooted and came crashing down on lines. Linemen from all over South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia are working around the clock (often with the help of tree removal crews) to try to restore power and I'm grateful for their hard work. The flooding over the weekend rivaled last year's historic flooding and a lot of people lost everything. 

Aerial shot of a tiny little community called Nichols,

maybe 15 miles from my parents' house.

So I won't complain about being inconvenienced for a few days and losing all the food in our refrigerator and freezer. We were extremely fortunate. No big trees fell on our house (although so many were down in our neighborhood getting out was like running a maze at first), the flooding was minimal and nothing is water damaged, our freezer stayed cold enough to keep water and soda chilled, and maybe most importantly, it's turned cool outside. If this hurricane had happened a month earlier we would have been miserable with sweltering temperatures and high humidity. Instead, we are having some of the most beautiful weather of the whole year, gloriously blue skies, warm days, slightly chilly nights....just wonderful. The first two days after the storm, our water pressure was down to a trickle, but then it re-pressurized and never had to be shut completely off. And on top of that, we always have hot water when the power goes out thanks to our gas powered hot water heater.

Yes, all in all we were lucky. We were slightly inconvenienced, having to do without tv and limited internet access (as our phones had to be charged in our car and we didn't want to drain the batteries by using them too much), and cooking outside on the grill and Coleman camping stove, but all in all it was ok. I'll count my blessings.

And what a change it was to hang out by candlelight for three days, with almost no screen time. We sat outside each night and watched the sun go down, and marveled at how dark and serene the neighborhood was without street lights and well-lit houses. We walked the dogs with flashlights (that we didn't really need thanks to the moonlight) and the crisp autumn air felt great. The hurricane really seemed to usher in fall for us! So it wasn't all bad. Not at all.

Today has been busy, catching up with laundry and doing a final cleaning out of the refrigerator and freezers. Now I'm getting ready to head out grocery shopping. It's going to be expensive, stocking everything back up, but then we should be back to normal at my house. Thanks for all the comments and good wishes everyone left here for me during the ordeal! I really appreciated them all!