Wild & Wacky Week

Winter Blast 2009 (as the local tv station called it) was the big event of the week. The ice storm froze just about everything for a brief time but things slowly started returning to normal. Although for our family normal is still a ways off. But in the meantime we have a warm place with electricty to stay--Mimi's.

Monday night the trouble began...freezing rain. Tuesday morning the roads weren't slick but the power lines, trees, porch, steps, etc were covered in ice. Our electric flickered off and on until a little after 6:30 a.m. Then it went off for good. Thankfully Kevin & I were showered and dressed. Anna was eating at the table and Mason was wondering around the house. When it went off it was black in the house. I couldn't find Mason and he started crying. I finally made my way to his cries, found a flashlight and lit some candles. Mimi was off work so she had planned to keep the kids if daycare was closed. I packed a few "extra" items for the kids before we all hit the road.

Around 2:30 Mimi's electric went off too. By late afternoon it was still off so Kevin & I decided to go check our house. We were certain it would be off too but needed to get clothes and things for us. We saw lots of tree damage on our way home. During the drive I called and reserved a hotel room. When we turned down our road we became certain that our electric was still off. There were power lines sagged to the point of touching the ground! We got home (electric was out) and bagged up our necessities. While outside we could hear branches breaking and crashing to the ground all around our area. During the time we were at home (15 minutes max) a tree fell across our gravel road. Kevin was able to put the truck in 4-wheel drive and barely drive around it. While going down the highway back to town we ran upon a few cars stopped in the road. A tree had fallen across the highway and some men were cutting it up and moving it out of the road. It was an exciting adventure to our house and back to Mimi's. We got some food from Sonic, ate, and took off to our hotel.

The Scarborough luck took over...we got to the hotel and waited for Kevin to check in. He was gone for a long time but there were several other cars at the entrance. He finally called me and said "which Comfort Inn did you call?" Me "I don't know." So then we had to drive to another hotel (fortunately not too far away) and that was the correct one. This was all during a cold, pouring rain. We got checked in, bags unloaded, all 5 of us (Kevin, me, Anna, Mason & Mimi) up to the room and ready to settle in for the night. After a few minutes we realized the heater wasn't working right (blowing cold air). The maintanence man came up and agreed there was a problem. Of course there were no more rooms available. He offered us a small space heater. We sat it in the floor next to Mason's Pak-n-Play to keep him warm and the rest of us covered up in bed.

About 1:00 am Wednesday morning the electric went off in the hotel. We looked out the window at south Jonesboro and there wasn't a single light in sight! The whole town south of us was black. Around 6:00 am we still didn't have electric but a few places south of us did. Kevin drove to his mom's house to see if by some miracle she had electric but of course she didn't. He was in awe of how much of Jonesboro was without power and the damage done to trees and power lines. With no lights, hot water or electricty it made it difficult to continue normal life. I found out that my office did have electricity so I went into work late (once the sun came up and I could apply some makeup by sunlight.) I worked a few hours, the electricity at the hotel came back on in the afternoon and then Kevin and I made a trip to our house to check out the damage and get more clothes and supplies. The highway to our house had so much tree and power line damage. Our gravel road was hit hard too. Most of the highline poles from the highway to our house are broken and on the ground. Meaning the power lines are down too. Someone had came through earlier in the day and cleared a path down the road by pushing the limbs, trees, etc out of the way. I took some pictures but it may be a while before I can upload them (I'm using Kevin's laptop and don't have a way to get them on his computer). Our house was freezing cold but fortunately the pipes weren't frozen. We turned our water drips up to a small stream because of the expected cold temps for the night.

Thursday was a stressful day. There was confusion over our hotel room (we waited too long to ask for another night and our room was already booked by someone else. We were offered another room and thought it was understood that we wanted it, even though it was a smoking and a king bed, but they ended up giving it away too.) We called all the hotels and of course no one had a room available. Mimi still didn't have power and we were stuck without a place to stay warm. Fortunately daycare was open and I took the kids there for a while. We bought a generator for my uncle & aunt and I met them in Paragould to hand it over to them. Then I intended to stop by our house to feed the cats and check on things. I couldn't get down the road because a crew was cleaning branches and trees off the power lines (a good sign of progress). I ran back to town and checked Mimi's house again- no power. Went and ran some errands, picked up the kids and went to the mall to stay warm. Apparently several others had the same idea because the playground was really busy. But it killed time and kept us warm. In the meantime Kevin was in line at Sam's waiting for generators to come in. (We should never have passed up getting one at Lowe's that morning but didn't realize at that point that we didn't have a hotel room for the night.) Kevin called from Sam's and said his mom had talked to a neighbor and she had power. He was afraid to get out of line until we knew for certain. So the kids and I ran to her house and yes the lights worked! The house was cold so we made a trip out to our house to check on things since I never made it there earlier. Kevin stayed in line at Sam's to get a number for the generators coming in. He was toward the front of the line while some friends of ours were further back. He got a number and then gave it to them so they would get a generator. We all finally met at Mimi's house about 6 pm. About 7 pm poor Mason started vomiting. At first we thought it was something he had ate but realized over time that it must have been a stomach virus. We were so glad that we were out of the hotel and had heat and lights. We were up & down most of the night with him.

Friday morning Mimi's electric went out around 4:00 am. We thought maybe they had turned it off to work on something else and that it would be back on soon. After a couple hours we started getting worried. Mason was still sick (vomiting & fever) and he & I wouldn't have any heat if the electric didn't come back. Kevin called Sam's and they had some generators. He went and bought one, came back and got it running, hooked up a couple of electric heaters, refrigerator and tv, took Anna to daycare and then went to work. Mason felt bad all day but the vomiting did stop during the morning. He and I just stayed in the living room with the heaters to stay warm. Kevin and I were about to head to our house to get an air mattress so we could all sleep in the living room with the heaters when the electric came back on around 7 pm. We were so glad to see it!

Today Anna was invited to a friend's birthday party at Chuck-E-Cheese. About an hour into the party Anna was complaining that her head hurt. It was bad enough that she was sitting on Kevin's lap instead of playing (a sure sign that she felt horrible because she had been so excited about the party.) We left early and started back to our temporary home. Not far from the house she said she needed to throw up so we stopped on the side of the road. Nothing happened and we made it to Mimi's in the nick of time. Right now she is sleeping which is good for her. Now I'm just wondering who will be next...Kevin, Mimi or myself. I'm really ready for life to return to normal. However that may be a while because this next week is looking abnormal too.