The Blog is Back and the Weather Posts Thunder On!

We're back!

After 55 hours without power, and 60 without internet, The Strait Line has finally emerged from the "Irma Days".

And, of course, we're back to weather related posts!

The picture above is Benjamin standing in front of our yard debris pile.  Trust me, it looks even bigger in person, and we added to it after that.  Our neighbors agree - we are the yard debris champs! We have a very large, very old oak tree in our back yard, and although the main trunk is more solid than our house, the limbs rain down big time during storms.

We also had some big pine tree limbs fall in the front yard, so big that a friend came over yesterday and helped saw them up, so they could be carried to the debris pile. I am very grateful to him.  I got nothing, not a chainsaw or electric saw or even regular saw.  You see that I don't saw.  I may have to rethink that.

We also were able to use a friend's freezer to store some meats we had recently gotten from the WayGreen Festival.  He had a generator, and was kind enough to give us some storage space.  The whirring sound of generators was strong in our neighborhood.  I don't own a generator.  I may be rethinking that as well,

We got out to look at how the neighborhood fared, and wound up talking more to people than at any time since we moved in over four years ago.  Political and religious differences, shyness and the self-absorbed busyness of our lives, all disappear in the aftermath of a huge storm.  It was heartwarming to see people out and about and supporting each other.  It was also nice to have a couple of days where the weather was cooler and I wasn't under siege by flying insects.

I admit that Irma was more substantial here than I thought.  It created a lot of mess and damage throughout Southeast Georgia, even with the main path well west of us, and it being a tropical storm rather than a hurricane by the time it passed us.  It is the most damage we've received from a storm, and the longest power outage I've experienced.

If the lesson was to learn how important power was, and to appreciate it, then I didn't need the lesson. I figured that out in the first hour of the outage.  I didn't need the next 54 for it to sink in .  Yep.  I loves lights and TV and hot showers and refrigerated food and computers and the internet.  Am I spoiled?  Indubitably.  But I can live with that.


One more weather story tomorrow, as I have to piece something together for a newspaper column.  I have it tentatively titled as Open Refrigerator Policy.

The Strait Line is back, baby!

I hope you are too!