Friday, July 15, 2005

Hurricane Rose

When the news reports all say that a hurricane is moving towards your town you hurry and make preparations. That's what I did last weekend. Then suddenly I remembered the vegetables and the rose garden.

It was a hopeless feeling because what can a person do to protect their plants from hurricane force winds? Not much.

We did have high winds that scary night, but not as bad as they predicted. The next morning I was apprehensive to look at the gardens, especially the roses. Most of the rose plants were new, mothers day presents this year.

Imagine how surprised I was to find this rosebud! I call it my hurricane rose.


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Monday, July 11, 2005

Getting Back To Normal

What a beautiful day in Eutaw Alabama! The sun is most welcome today as we go about putting things back in place.

During the peak of what was left of hurricane Dennis an amazing thing happened. Our electric power went on and off a few times but that was all! It wasn't off more than a minute at a time. It is amazing because, on a regular normal basis, our electric service is the worst I have ever experienced anywhere.

How bad is it, you ask? I don't think a week goes by without having to reset clocks and vcr's at least once or twice. This only happens in the Eutaw location, not in our Demopolis location. It didn't happen when we were in Tuscaloosa and didn't happen in Dothan. Only happens here.

Funny - But True

As mentioned above, we were fortunate to not loose electric power, however the cable TV went out about 10:30 pm. We waited until this morning to call the cable company and report the outage.

When we told them that the cable was out they said that they had someone in Eutaw at the moment and about 1/2 of Eutaw was without electricity. Then they said:

"..........wait until your electricity comes back on, that will probably fix the problem".
We had to explain to the cable company that we have electricity, that is how we know that the cable is out AND without electricity we would not be able to use the TV.

They said ok and within a short time our cable was restored.

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Sunday, July 10, 2005

Sunday Evening Update

We are in for heavy winds tonight. Here in the city of Eutaw our power is still on but I think we will loose it soon. We have a lot to be thankful for, things could have been much worse.

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Category 4 - Situation Is Very Dangerous

I have been following the updates throughout the night, hoping this storm will loose strength, but that hasn't happened yet. The winds are now at 145 mph. There is not much time left for last minute preparations.

Sunday night is going to be scary. Don't forget to put the fresh batteries in your flashlight before the power goes out. Charge your cell phones too. Here is a list of emergency phone numbers in case you have misplaced your phone book. Write them down and put them with your cell phone.

Areas where 911 is not available:
  • Alabama Power Hotline: 1-800-888-2726
  • Eutaw Fire: 372-3262
  • Eutaw Police: 372-4334
  • Eutaw & Boligee Ambulance: 372-4700
  • Boligee Fire: 372-4700
  • Boligee Police: 372-3242

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Saturday, July 09, 2005

Hurricane Dennis Is Now A Category 3

Looks like we are going to be in for a bumpy ride. Dennis continues to grow stronger in the Gulf of Mexico with an expected landfall late Sunday afternoon.

Please don't underestimate the power of this hurricane. According to the National Weather Service we could have wind gusts as high as 70 mph. Please make sure loose items (trashcans, etc) in your yard are secured. As of sunset Saturday evening, there were still a lot of loose items in peoples yards here in Eutaw.

I've noticed a lot more people seem to be taking hurricane preparation more seriously, probably because Ivan is still so fresh on our minds.

However, there are still those who say they have been through this before and don't seem overly concerned. I know people that live in the Mobile area that are staying there during the hurricane. It is my opinion that it can't hurt anything to err on the side of caution.

This is a monster storm. Please, don't take any chances. If not for yourself, do it for your family and friends.

I will be back in a while to post some emergency phone numbers and the latest storm updates.

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Preparing For Hurricane Dennis

Here we go again. Who would have thought that we would be preparing for another major hurricane so soon after Ivan?

I hear it is bumper to bumper traffic on interstate 65, so many people evacuating and heading north. It was miserable here after Ivan swept through last September. We went days without electric power or phones. It was my hope to stay in a hotel this time but it looks like that will not happen. News reports say that the hotels are all booked.

There is a lot to do and not much time left to do it. I am still hoping that Dennis looses power before hitting the coast.

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