|
Hurricane Wilma Part Two
Thanks to the quick action of the nightgown ladies and the machete guys, the little neighborhood of Fay's Cove was able to emerge from Hurricane Wilma without major flooding damage. It was amazing, though, how fragile the infrastructure proved to be. There was no electricity, no land line telephone service, no cell phone service, and no access in or out of the neighborhood due to fallen trees. Since everybody had electric garage door openers, all the houses were unlocked, and every fence in the community had been tipped over, so there were no yards or property lines. There were generators, but no gasoline to run them, and the newer cars were equipped with anti-theft devices so that gas could not be siphoned out of them. People began to immediately call upon their neighbors, grilling up meat that had thawed in the freezers, and sharing their propane grills with one another. The barbecue went from house to house, and each night the kids would schlepp the lawn chairs from one house to the next. Across the street, a fence had fallen on a water pipe, and a neighbor's water was pouring into the street. Fixing this was a first priority. Another neighbor built a campfire in his yard and was burning the fences to make hot water for laundry. He had a chainsaw as well, and was able to clear some trees from the main street (funny, I don't remember ever paying any taxes to HIM!) We had a real hard time fixing Gary's water pipe as it was PVC and it just didn't want to go back together without leaking! Since I had made a point of saving water, I gave my water to Gary because I still had water coming out of my faucets. Since Gary had both a grill and a little propane stove, he gave me the stove and a little can of propane so I wouldn't have to eat cold Chef-boy-ar-dee for lunch. Dinner was always a feast...Arroz Con Pollo, Jamaican Jerk Chicken, Nicaraguan Steaks on the grill, lots and lots of hot dogs and SPAM, but I burned it off cutting the trees into three foot lengths and dismantling the fences into three foot pieces for the trucks if they ever decide to come and haul away the trash. I also did the laundry by hand in the kitchen sink and hung it on the frames of my screen porch (the screens all blew away) and made coffee by ladling the propane heated water into the coffee maker one ladle at a time.
Did I mention that in all this time I never did once see a town official, police officer, helicopter, Red Cross worker, street sweeper, or even a lousy cup of coffee from the Home Owners Association? But I digress.
Right after the storm, Mike had to fill several prescriptions but we didn't have any cash. We walked down to Walgreens which was open, but only for one person at a time. A child with a flashlight led us to the back of the store, where Jay, the Pharmacist, filled the prescriptions by flashlight. He gave Mike enough for five days and said that as soon as he could get to an ATM that worked, he could get the rest of the Rx. Hang onto that thought, because in the next installment, I will relate how that event led to Mike's identity being stolen at the ATM five days later.
Anyway...here we go. Now we were on our third day without power or telephone, and still no word from the gub'mint about what we were supposed to be doing so we were on our own. I had just celebrated my 53rd birthday and in a neighborhood of "starter homes" we have a lot of young marrieds with little babies. The milk had all gone sour and I felt like a grandmother to all these babies. It was time to do something! We managed to obtain some powdered milk and some canned milk for the kids and i was keeping them entertained playing "Old MacDonald" on the accoustic guitar. Did i mention I have SIX keyboards, but NONE of them worked as they were ALL electric? Grrrrr. Kids love Torey The Dog, so we wandered around the neighborhood, playing with kids and keeping them occupied while the dads and moms worked on scary things like chainsaws and generators. Ten year old Oscar was real helpful sawing up my Banyan tree into managable pieces. Kids were already forsaking video games for funky old fashioned things like football and baseball in the street. The weather was blessedly cool, so these sports were quite invigorating. In the bright sunlight, I noticed a dark stain of water damage on my living room ceiling. Uh-oh. So I walked across the stree and looked up and sure enough, there were tiles missing off my roof. Perhaps FEMA or the Army Corps of Engineers could get up tarp up there for me? I would have to find out. Meanwhile, Mike would have to get to an ATM machine and pay for the rest of that prescription.
Friday night after the hurricane a cheer went up in the neighborhood. We had power! People ran out into the street and began hugging and kissing one another. I led a grapevine dance down the middle of the street. Fireworks were set off! I ran to my house and burst through the front door and switched on the light....NOTHING! NADA! RIEN! NICHEVO! BUPKUS! I was the ONLY one on my street without power! I called Florida power and light the next day from a neighbor's cell phone. The thought the whole neighborhood was fixed so I must have been on a different grid. The next day i got telephone service and all my neighbors phones went off but it would be a week before I would get electricity.
As soon as my phone came on, it rang. It was VISA. Someone looked over Mike's shoulder at the ATM and tried to clean out our bank account after he did a cash advance to pay for the prescription. The Bank caught the fraud but they had to close out the VISA and issue a new number which would take ten days. Since i hadn't worked now for two weeks and hadn't gotten paid for three, it meant we now had NO MONEY.
But, as Bob Dylan once said, "When You ain't got nothin', you ain't got nothin' to lose." |
| |
|
| |
|
|
Finally I reached a recorded announcement at "Operation Blue Roof" that if i drove ten miles through the ruined treacherous streets using precious gas and treating each intersection as a four way stop, and signing a form, I could get the Army Corps of Engineers to install a tarp over the hole in my roof. OK so this would be my first venture out into the cold cruel world outside of Fay's Cove. So I steeled my will and got into the car and ventured forth, and it was a very scary ride! I hardly recognized the area. Nearly every tree was down, and the few sticks left standing were dead and brown from wind burn. Every utility pole was snapped in two and live wires were hanging on the street, and there were no traffic signals or stop signs. Most drivers were curteous, but not all. When I got to "Operation Blue Roof", I was greeted by a big sign: WE DO NOT DO CONCRETE TILE ROOFS.
So I turned around and went home again.
That was twenty miles of gas burned up for nothing.
Halloween was coming and I had some change in the bottom of a drawer, so since the candy in Walgreens had been marked down to half price (as it was melting!) we bought a couple of bags so the kids could still have Halloween in spite of everything. My house was still dark so I sat out in the middle of the street with Torey The Dog and told the kids she was my daughter dressed as a Border Collie! Soon the street was filled with Trick or treaters and we did halloween anyway. Later, while Mike was still at work, Torey The Dog and I went back indoors and played Five card Poker by candlelight. Since i used honey-roasted peanuts for ante, and a varied schedule of reinforcement, she was very complient and we played for nearly an hour. When her hand beat mine, she got a peanut. When mine beat hers, I got it.
I got my power back exactly two weeks after the storm, but it will probably be months before they pick up the trash.
And did i mention that Insurance has decided that they don't want to cover my losses because they have invented a new thing called a "Hurricane deductable" and sneaked it into everyone's policies last autumn after Hurricane Ivan?
I guess it takes something like this to really open a person's eyes.
| Slowly but surely things are coming back to normal, but as I go house to house visiting my students I am seeing some very crazy and unusual damage caused by the hurricane which by its sheer weirdness will probably not be covered by any insurance policies.
1. "Hurricane Glass" is worthless. I have so far seen several examples of huge panels of it shattered and blown across rooms like shotgun pellets, imbedding itself in opposite walls, shattering vases, furniture, fish tanks and other windows. There is NO substitute for HURRICANE SHUTTERS!
2. PVC fences are even worse than wooden fences. A brand new PVC fence in an adjacent neighborhood did more poorly than our neighborhood's 12 year old rotten wooden one!
3. Here's a weird one! My student's entire sliding door blew in, and her piano keyboard sunk! All the keys went flat. It's a Baldwin, so it's worth fixing, but it's the strangest thing I ever saw. I think it was due to the drop in air pressure.
4. And, last, but not least, all the "Porta-Potties" at all the construction sites became airborn missiles and ended up all over the county, in people's yards, swimming pools, and living rooms.
Eyew.
Arc Music Of Boca
I have discovered the most terrific music store in Boca Raton! It is called "Arc Music of Boca" and is located in the Lakeside Plaza on the corner of Glades and Boca Rio Road. I now study Bass and Drums there, and have become the "Official Keyboard and Voice Teacher". The folks there are real musicians and are very cool. Just tell them Mary-Lou sent you! There will be a link to their site on my links page!
|
