Some Labor Day

It didn't feel like summer at all. In fact, it felt like it was 6:30PM all weekend with Frances in our backyard--all gray and icky outside. My mom pleaded with me to leave the mobile home, so I "evacuated" on Sunday morning. We waited for the show, but it never got too big. Mom's power was out and still hasn't come back on (2 days). We partied with the candles in the living room and Karina and I sang all the musical scores and Christmas songs we knew, because for some reason it felt like Christmas. Then we went to bed.

Today, I wanted running water and a shower, so I pleaded with my mom to let me go home. We debated the wisdom of such a decision, knowing that the road to my house is probably flooded and covered with fallen trees. I finally told her that if she didn't take me in the truck, I was going to park my car at the beginning of the road and hike home. I really didn't think the weather was too scary outside.

I was wrong. At my mom's house--deep in the woods--there are hundreds of trees surrounding the house to screen the wind. When I parked my car at the end of my road, on an open expanse of pasture under a powerline, I was terrified that the entire electric structure was going to fall over on my car. The wind was blowing so hard I could barely open the car door, and then when I got out it almost knocked me down. The tall grass was flat on the ground, bent over in the ripping wind. I love wind, but this was kinda scary. Then we hopped into the truck and she took us on an off-road adventure down my little dirt lane. When we turned the corner, there was a huge oak tree crossing the road and a bunch of thick vines blocking our passage. Since I was only a couple hundred yards away from my house, I decided to make a run for it. I didn't consider the fact that I'd be running into the wind. I was afraid for me and Issac's safety (who was laughing maniacally). I was afraid a waterlogged branch might fall on our heads as we made our dash for the house.

Anyways, that's my hurricane story. It's been raining for three days straight and it is really really windy outside. Lots of trees have fallen over (four in my brother's yard) and branches have fallen down. One oak tree on my road has been ripped over onto its side, exposing a stringy hand of roots, whick spike high up into the air. The ground is completely covered with a layer of medium sized branches, twigs, and leaves--I can't see any grass or dirt anywhere.

Fun. Part of me wants to run outside hooting and hollering like a wild thing, taking part somehow in the wildness that has ravaged our county.

PS--What's up with those weather reporters? Scene: roofs are blowing off houses, sea spray is flying over the surge, the reporter's jacket is almost blowing off of them, and yet they remain on-scene to report that "the police officers have all evacuated and moved inland--we're out here on our own. It's really wild! We're experiencing 65 mph winds! Wow! Did you see that roof blow by? We could get impaled out here!" -- Apparently, reporters are exempt from mandatory evacuation laws. Are they forced to go out there by mean bosses looking to get the edge? ("Get out there Thompson, or you're FIRED!") Or are they looking for their big break? ("Oooh, this will get me the anchor seat!") I notice it's never the meteorologists who are sent out there--it's always some person I've never heard of before, as though maybe they're not expecting them to come back.