As most of you may know, there were storms in my general area on April 27. I was not harmed. As far as I know, the rest of my family is safe as well. My Nana’s quasi-adopted sister lost her trailer when a tree fell on it and (according to Nana) split it in half. Another tree fell on my great-great aunt and uncle’s old house. No one lives in that house, so I guess that it’s okay that it fell on it. The scary part about that particular tornado was that it went between the houses of my grandmother and her neighbor.
The top picture shows the neighbor’s house, so somewhere between where I was standing when I took the picture and that house is where the tornado went through. Then it crossed the street and hit the old house of my great-great aunt and uncle, which is in the middle of those streets in the second picture. (Obviously, the pictures are old.)
A tornado that was reported to have touched down a few miles away from my house went over my neighborhood without doing any damage. I’m glad that we were safe, but I hate that I was sitting there during the storms wanting them to hit anywhere but where I was. It’s one of those survivor guilt things.
We lost power on Wednesday night at around 6 PM. At first, we thought it was just some normal severe weather power loss thing. Then we found out that the major power lines that serve the Huntsville area from Browns Ferry Nuclear Power Plant were pretty much wiped out. Around a half million people in North Alabama were reported to be without power. The first estimates said we would have power within a couple of days. Then it became “by the end of the weekend”. By yesterday morning, we weren’t sure when the power would come back on. It seemed like as soon as we stopped worrying about it, it came back on. At around noon or maybe an hour later, we got power. I hadn’t seen any pictures or video of what had happened. I had relied on some reports on Twitter and Facebook, as well as a battery-powered radio, to know what was going on. I finally got to see what had happened on Wednesday. I was kind of glad that I didn’t get to see the initial carnage, because I know that the first two days always look worse than 3-4 days after a storm.
We’re still under a curfew, as far as I kn9w, because even though my neighborhood has power, 70% of the city doesn’t have power. (My neighborhood was one of the first to get power [we had it when 95% of the city didn't], which I guess meant it was a priority neighborhood–term used by the city/local officials.) My dad went out last night to pick up some sandwiches for us to eat, since all of our food had spoiled in the 4 days without power. He went out again today and got some food that was a little more substantial. Our neighbors had made 3 meals for us during the power outage–spaghetti; bacon, pancakes, and strawberries; and sausage with sauerkraut, macaroni & cheese, and baked beans. I’m going to have to think of a way to thank them, but I’m not sure what I can say that will show just how appreciative I really was. They also sent some iced tea (sweetened), but we couldn’t drink it. (My dad and I both have the caffeine issues, and my mom was afraid to drink anything sweet with her diabetes.)
I want to thank those of you who checked on me, helped me get in touch with relatives, and were just really kind and considerate during this whole thing. I also want to thank those of you who were still posting silly things during this time. The silly stuff helped keep me sane.
It sucks. I have an intake to go through with the therapist, then a psychiatric evaluation to go through on March 21st. Not cool. They asked what my diagnoses were on the form, and I marked a few because I’ve been diagnosed with a few. Actually the only one listed that I hadn’t been diagnosed with was Schizophrenia, though it was suggested that I have it back about 4 years ago, and Schizoaffective Disorder is in that class of problems.