Don't let me bore you with tales - but some of them are worth repeating.
Danbury was NOT that hard hit. But the damage will take months to repair. Most of the really dangerous stuff is just about done. Still no power at the house. The rest will wait for the insurance adjusters to come survey it.
Best storm story – a friend of a friend has a house on Galveston Island. He sent his kids and wife inland, but decided to stay because the storm’s track was not all that certain and he was concerned about looters. So he’s on the phone to his wife, calmly describing how he has moved to the second floor because water is hip deep on the ground floor of their home, when he interrupts and says “Gotta go, the house is on fire”. He swims away from his burning house in the middle of the hurricane. Took him 24 hours to find a TV crew that would loan him a cellphone so he could call his wife and tell her that he lived.
Best story about stupid - the Danbury Volunteer Fire Department has a big generator, and most of them stayed through the storm – so they were all ready to render assistance. But they forgot to put oil in the generator.
It ran for 257 hours, and then exploded. Now they are running on a little Honda.
Best story about bad planning – the Danbury water system has a main well, without any backup power, and an emergency well, with a generator. But the emergency well was not plumbed into the City water system. So the entire City has been running for a week on a ethnically-engineered system that involves three inch fire hoses connecting the well to the nearest fire hydrant.
Best story about industry – my friend Butch, who has hydraulics, was been running around town with his BEEG tractors, pulling downed trees off the power lines, so the power crews can make repairs. The City thought that was a good idea and hired him to clean the piles of trees and trash that were accumulating along the streets.
Best little old ladies – we have been a part of two little old lady “rescues”. They hate to be rescued – independence is important to them. When we found out Bernice was out of oxygen and needed power to breathe – she was trying to call a list of OTHER elderly people she was worried about.
When Annie finally called and asked if we could get some water to her – she was worried about her cats (she’s the local cat lady).
Funniest personal moment – when Bernice got power and we had an extra generator, we took it to my exH. He had been without power for several days. I forgot it was his birthday. So he and Susie Swivelhips, current girlfriend were on their way out to dinner. He lingered to learn how to operate the generator. When he got power back a couple of days later, we went over to transfer his house back to the grid. Susie Swivelhips said “You guys are great” in the way that doesn’t make it a compliment. I told her we do useful things! (As though I thought it WAS a compliment).
Some great, but not personal moments – The city park was hit hard. Giant pecan trees crumpled like paper, trees 35 to 50 feet tall, 50 or more years old, reduced to heaps. About day two someone decided that the park was a priority, so the kids would have somewhere to go. All day long pickups would arrive. Guys would lower their tail gate and fiddle with their chain saws, and then just join in. No organized effort, just people driving by who decided to help. The park was cleared within a day – all volunteer.
