Lift Up Your Hearts!

Thursday, September 9, 2004. 6:30 a.m.  Somehow the Lord’s Prayer keeps coming out, “deliver us from Ivan.” This guy is really nasty, and he has us in his sights. It’s good to know that God has us in His hands. As reassuring as that is, we know that doesn’t necessarily mean we will be spared Ivan’s blows, but that He will see us through whatever happens, and will use it as part of the process of making us into the people He wants us to be. Nonetheless, we continue to pray—and to ask for your prayers—that we will not have to go through another hurricane this year. I’d like to have time to digest the lessons of Charley and Frances before moving on to the next class. Most people here, even those of us with little damage, are still stunned and staggering from the one-two punch.

As disasters go, you could even call this mild. I can’t imagine how horrible it must be in Iraq, or Somalia....

Somewhere out in the water (without passing over inhabited areas first), there to spend itself harmlessly into oblivion, that’s where I want this hurricane to go.

5:30 p.m. So much for lunch. We had power for an hour and a half, but lost it again around noon. Despite having really looked forward to warm pizza for lunch this time, we have nothing to complain about. The power was restored again around 2:30, and that’s more than many people can say. I hear that about a third of Florida is still without power, and Frances is still not quite done with us, spawning more storms and tornadoes long-distance.

They say Frances did the worst coastal damage in Florida’s history.
Once again, we have supply problems, especially of gasoline. The plus side of that is that it encourages people not to travel. So many traffic lights are out that we are seeing terrible accidents. When the lights are out, you’re supposed to treat the intersection as a four-way stop, and when that doesn’t happen, disaster sometimes follows. The TV people imply that it’s because people don’t know—or choose to ignore—the rule, but having driven to the airport after Charley, I can attest that a traffic light that is not lit is very difficult to see, especially in the dark. Better not to travel, if you can avoid it.

After Charley, my posts became somewhat philosophical. Right now I’m too weary for philosophizing. I’ll just say this: Light—Power—Water—Refrigeration—Air conditioning—Working sewers—Minimal damage to our home—Good neighbors—Hard-working Labor Day laborers—Thanks be to God!

11:00 a.m. The power came on, apparently for real, about 10:35—after two previous attempts. Believe it or not, neither the A/C nor the water heater activated when we turned them on. It’s not that hot inside, thanks to the lack of sun and the fact that our computers were off. I’ll be happy when the A/C does come on, however, to take some of the humidity out of the air. We’re not rushing it— no point in overloading the newly-restored power as everyone’s A/C kicks in. It was certainly good to hear the refrigerator come on.
Porter had been on his way up to the roof to assess damage and fasten down the vent that had blown loose, but the heavens opened up again with some of the heaviest rain yet. The wind is pretty much calm now, though we are under a tornado watch.

We are beginning to clean up and put the house back in order, with a few exceptions: the plywood, for instance, is staying on the windows, at least until we see what happens with the approaching Hurricane Ivan.

The fact that Hurricane Frances caused much, much less damage than she might have is little consolation to those who have been hit hard, especially in the coastal areas. But that’s no reason not to be extremely thankful that she was less than a Category 1, instead of a Category 4, when she finally came through here. Unlike hit-and-run Charley, most of the local problems were due to the fact that Frances simply wouldn’t go away. That and the weakened infrastructure because we had not recovered from Charley’s blow.

Thanks again to all of your for your concern, thoughts, and especially prayers. Back to work—and lunch.

8:30 a.m. As I said before, the best part of a hurricane is the neighborliness. A neighbor we hardly know just stopped by and handed us a package of dry ice!

Okay, it’s time to try our battery recharge procedure.

Monday, September 6, 2004. 7:45 a.m. Apparently there was a fair amount of wind and rain last night, but for the most part we slept through it. Porter heard a news report in the middle of the night, which said that the number of people without power in our county has greatly increased, which probably decreases the probability that we’ll get ours back anytime soon. The main problem is that the crews can’t work in winds over 30 mph. One good thing: Porter remembered the power converter we have in the car, and now that we can drive around the neighborhood to charge the battery, we can use it to run the TV for short periods of time, and to charge the laptop battery. We’re being conservative, not knowing how fast the car battery will drain, but it’s a comforting thought. In the meantime, I’m thinking of several projects that I can do without the computer and with less than optimal light—maybe I can accomplish them since I don’t have the computer to distract me. They wouldn’t be my top priority if we had power, but we don’t, so they get bumped up on the list.
Maybe today we can make contact with more friends. Some we reached yesterday and found they are doing all right, but with others we couldn’t get through by phone. They are probably fine, but they live in areas with less robust infrastructure (one reason we can’t reach them by phone), so it would be nice to know for certain.

In the meantime, it is still amazing to contemplate the fact that the rest of our family and friends are going about their normal lives. That includes their own problems, of course. I don’t think Frances can be blamed, but Aquillo snapped its mooring and ended up on the causeway! It’s okay, and safe in the boatyard now.

8:45 p.m. I could almost ditto the previous entry. Frances—the Energizer Hurricane. It keeps going, and going, and going. Just when we think it’s been calm long enough that surely it must be over, another feeder band comes through with more wind and rain. We went out again, to visit neighbors, and to take a look around. We were surprised to note that areas that traditionally flood in heavy rains were clear. We did see some downed trees, but in general things looked pretty good.

We are a couple of crazy nerds, for sure, feeling all at sixes and sevens without our computers. Leisure is great when you are supposed to be working— but not nearly so much fun when you CAN’T work. For a while it was light enough to do a little work, even if not on the computer. After dinner (cold pizza) we read and did puzzles for a while (my World of Puzzles magazine came just in time!), and are now going to be early. Good night, all!

2:45 p.m. We’re still here, still fine, still without power, still getting squalls and gusts with periods of relative calm. We’re under a tornado watch (no warnings since the one mentioned above) until 9 p.m. We made a brief reconnaissance venture outside during a lull, finding small branches down, one screen section flapping, and a few shingles blown off—not bad at all so far.

I’d better go now, and save this laptop battery for later. Love to all.

9:10 a.m. Looks as if that's it for the power; it's time to turn off the computer. See you on the other side! Keep praying! We love you all!

7:00 a.m. Good morning! Porter's checking out the news while I bring up the computer and let people know all is well here. The winds have picked up a bit, with some impressive gusts, and occasional bouts of heavy rain. Believe it or not, our newspaper was delivered today (I guess that's part of the media's exemption from the curfew), and when Porter ventured out to retrieve it, he saw no damage yet in his hasty survey. The worst is expected to come early this afternoon, but the good news is that Frances has weakened a bit.

Hmm, just took a brief power hit. I'd better post this while I can.

Sunday, September 5, 2004. 12:30 a.m. I just awoke from a two-hour nap. It's pouring now, but the wind is still low. Frances is still inching along, so we are both going to try to get some sleep. I'm bringing the computer down now, in case we lose power overnight, but I hope to be able to bring it up in the morning. Good night, and God bless!

9:20 p.m. We just returned from a short walk outside. If I hadn't been thinking that at any moment a gust could blow a piece of debris at my head, it would have been great fun. If you're going to have a hurricane, you might as well enjoy it a little before it gets nasty. It's quite warm outside, warmer than you'd think from listening to the wind. Just a little chillier and it would have been really delightful. I love wind—in moderation, however. Having grown up in the northeast, where storms often provided a moderate amount of wind without fear of lightning, my favorite place at the onset of a storm (wind but no rain) was up in a tree, rocked by the wind. But a wind that rocks HOUSES is more than I want.

8:00 p.m. Still hanging in there, as Frances is essentially stalled. It's pretty nasty on the coast, though. And Grand Bahama has been pounded. It's the length of the bombardment more than the strength of the winds that is so stressful. What a contrast to Charley, which blew through here at about 45 mph. We're very thankful to have power still. I'll take advantage of that to show you a couple of pictures; not of the storm, which isn't here yet—and during which I won't be taking pictures!—but of preparation.

The back porch is now in the living room

Boarded-up window

6:15 p.m. Just to let you know that we dodged that one. It went a bit to the north of us.

5:40 p.m. We’re in a temporary lull, as Frances has stalled. Some places in Central Florida are without power already, but so far we still have ours. I used the time to burn several backup CD’s—you never know. Porter’s been keeping an eye on the reports while doing some AT&T work.

We’ve been gradually furnishing the hall again. It’s too narrow to hold everything until we really need it, but our supplies are close so we can hunker down fairly quickly.
Odd as it will seem to those of you who know us, we are actually considering getting a portable TV if they’re reasonably inexpensive. The TV stations do a much better job of covering the storm than the radio stations do, and we really felt information-deprived when we had no power during Hurricane Charley.

After posting this, I’m going to have some leftover pizza while we still have the luxury of heating it up. Then maybe some Poor Man’s Cake. Yum!

Porter just reported that a storm “with a tornado in it” is headed our way, due to arrive in about 15 minutes. (I put that in for you, Andy.) I hope I have nothing particularly exciting to report when I return. I hope I can return soon! Thanks again for your prayers.

3:45 p.m. More rain and gusts. Something hit the roof, sounded loud but, as I said before, a squirrel running across the roof sounds like stampeding horses, so it was probably a small branch. We had our first power hit; no worse than during a thunderstorm, but a reminder of what may be coming. Porter was out earlier helping a neighbor board up his windows. (There was quite a break between the first rain and this.) I’m glad he’s back now. Okay, to work again. “Work for the night is coming.” One good thing about hurricanes: they encourage me to clean my office!