Ivan...the Terrible (Pt 1)

Friday was a rehab day for me. It was raining lightly. I was supposed to meet with the nutritionist after my workout. She was there and said to page her when I was done. They did, but they couldn’t locate her. Finally they found her and we rescheduled for Monday. I had managed to go down another pound.

I went home and started on the basement. I got a lot more done. A lot of things went into containers, which was a very good thing as it turned out. We took a break for dinner and did some more. The rain was picking up a bit.

We kept checking the Weather Channel because of the game Saturday. It looked like Ivan was moving really fast and would blow out of here by kickoff. Amy wasn’t able to go, she was going to Trish’s (Chrissy’s Stepsister’s) baby shower. But Toby was looking for someone to fill in. He wouldn’t know for sure until later in the evening.

Back to work in the basement for awhile. I got nice and dusty moving stuff. We knocked off with a feeling that we were on track for the furnace guys to come in. I went up and figured I’d get a shower in a bit. Deb went to bed. Chrissy was playing Baldur’s Gate and I was on the computer. The rain was picking up. Very hard at times.

Around midnight the power went out for about 5 seconds. Whew…dodged a bullet that time. At about 12:15 the power dropped again. You know the vroom it makes when it comes back up, right. It was “Bam….vroom…Bam…vroom…Bam…vroom…Bam…vroom….Bam…vroom…BAM”

After the fourth drop, I said out loud “This is not good”. And it wasn’t. There we were, no power. So Chris went for some candles and I went in to shut down Deb’s machine and turn off her power supply. We did that and I told Chris to come down with me so I could cut my machines off.

I sat down at the machine and did my thing and moved my foot about two inches to the right. (Me) “Fuck….FUCK…” (Chrissy) “What’s wrong?” (Me) “The damn basement’s flooding.”

I immediately go into panic mode and figure that I have to get the sump pump running. So I go out and WADE into the garage. Probably about 2 inches of water there. I find the power inverter and go get the car. BTW, I forgot to mention that we couldn’t burn all of the trash that we generated during the day. So we stacked it up in the garage. So I had to maneuver around that while doing all this stuff too. I get the inverter hooked up to the van and plug the pump in and it runs.

We start moving boxes off the floor. We had a lot of plastic containers, so we were pretty good on some stuff. We had extra plastic boxes and stacked stuff on top of them.

The pump didn’t sound right, so I took a look at it. It turns out that the inverter is quite powerful enough to run the pump. So we were fucked. The second time I opened the garage door, one of the containers in the back of the garage blew over from the change in air pressure. It was really blowing outside.

So, at this point, I naturally decide that I’m going to Wal-Mart to get an inverter. The river had been rising up that way, but I didn’t think it was too bad.

I’m starting to shake at this point, so the diet goes out the window. I eat a bunch of snack bars and head up the road. This begins to unfold as a bad TV movie. I head down toward the highway, 3.2 miles away. There is a tree branch hanging from a tree just down the road from the house. Of course, I don’t get the omen thing.

I keep going and have to weave around a tree covering half the road. I keep going and trees are down everywhere. At one point I see a power line on the road. I go a little further and there is a tree completely across the road that has been cut to allow one lane of traffic thru. A little further down there is a huge tree down. Past that there is a tree down on a house. I finally get to the highway and there are emergency vehicles all over the place. I tell a guy flagging that I want to go to Lewistown. He says, you’re not going anywhere. They’re closing down 22/322 and not letting anyone on the highway.

So I turn around and head back home. I have a guy in front of me that’s going pretty slow and I know he doesn’t know where all the debris is, so I pass him. He’s got a Bush bumper sticker on, so I know he’s pissed when he sees my Kerry sticker. I get ahead of him and stop at the trees that are down till he catches up. So he can see what’s going on.

I get to the point where the tree was down on my way in, and there is a borough truck there. The guy gets out and puts up a “Road Closed” sign. He comes back and says I can’t get thru. I tell him I was just through there 5 minutes ago. I take a look and another tree has fallen, and this one does the job completely.

So we turn around and head back. There is a little dirt road that I thought I’d be cute and take. I get back it about 100 yards and there’s a dead tree across the road. I think I can pivot it and move it out of the way. Since it’s old and dead. Well, it is pivoted on the road in such a way that I can’t get any leverage. This is a very narrow road and I had a hell of a time turning around. Mr Bush was at the end of the road and I followed him back to the highway. We got on the road that was the detour until recently. All along that road there are trees down partially blocking the road.

We head up toward the rendering plant, so far so good. I get about a mile from my house and there’s another tree across the road. The road is completely covered, but there is a vehicle width between a fence and the tree. Mr. Bush goes for it and makes it. I think about it a second and think, screw it, and I go. I slid a little, but I did make it around. I finally made it home. Resigned to a wet basement.

The wind is whipping a lot. We’re sitting in the living room and Deb is spooked a few times by “cracks” outside. A little after two, she calls me out and says, “Does that sound like a freight train?” It did, but I didn’t want to panic anybody, so I said don’t worry about it.

We sat up and fretted a bit, then finally went to bed.

I’ll continue this later.

cya