Monday, It's now the afternoon of the hurricane. Wind is picking up and the rain is starting to come down a little harder. The power went out, so I don't even know if this blog will be published.. Ironically, My network is on battery backup, even my comcast modem has battery backup. The problem is not on my end, comcast with all of their engineers are too stupid to realize that when the power is down, so is their service. That's neither here nor there though, I can always surf the web on my phone if I need to.
Watching the trees blow from side to side and hearing the sounds of the storm is exciting. I thought of driving to the falls or the preserve, to see the water levels, but for now, I think it would be best to settle in. Days like today, I try to imagine what it must have been like to live in the days before electricity. Of course I say that while typing on my Bluetooth keyboard, attached to my tablet; listening to music from Pandora and boiling water, for a cup of tea on my gas stove. I didn't say I could relate, just that I wonder what it must have been like. I'm sure if power is out for more than a couple of days, I'll revert to burning the tip of a stick and writing my blog on a stone tablet.
For now, I'm in good spirits. I'm
healthy, the battery backups are holding and the storm is providing
interesting entertainment.
Tuesday, The morning after the storm.
Strange clouds are moving overhead. Depending on where you looked in
the sky, you would predict a violent storm or sunny weather coming.
Estimate for electricity restoration 7 to 10 days. AT&T and
T-Mobile service gone. Really? No power, no network, no phone. I'm
not a high level engineer, but people at these companies need to be
fired. Have they never heard of a generator? I can't get in touch
with my kids or mom they're on AT&T too. One bright spot, txting
kind of works. If it goes through it is severely delayed though.
I tried going to see if my mom was OK,
but no traffic lights and all roads leading to her house are closed.
Luckily the road closed right after the brook. So I decided to take
a walk and some picture. The brook was high, but not flooding.
Different colored siding materials were floating to the edges. The
trees had been stripped of their leaves. It looked more like a
winter scene than a fall one. As I walked back to the car, I planned
a route to the falls, with all right turns, to avoid the stupid
drivers on the road who did not understand the function of a stop
sign.
Every road I turned down ended up being
a dead end. Trees were down, wires were down, drivers brains were
down. I settled for going to the preserve. Getting there would be
easier. As I rolled up to the bridge at the preserve, tide was
moving out. I met a man who was looking down the water in a daze.
We began talking. He was from the Tinton Falls Road works
department. He was proud of the work his crew had done, but admitted
that there was much more. When I told him that I could not make it
south, he seemed to take it personally. I felt bad for mentioning it
and told him the work he and his crews were doing was greatly
appreciated. He made me aware the roads that were most problematic.
We talked about the preserve for a while and he left.
I decided to take the high trail, or
what was left of it. At the top of the hill, the difference in the
landscape was immediately apparent. Amazing how one storm could
change the land with such ease. I followed what I assumed was the
trail I had taken so many times before. Looping down to the lowlands
I was shocked at the sparseness of trees. Even with the tide going
out, the river had swallowed up much of the land. As I sat
determining my next move, a cold wind woke me to the possibility of
the danger of sitting under hanging branches and weakened limbs. As
I turned to start my way back, A large crack to my right, followed by
a splash, forced me to speed up my departure.
Getting back to the Escape, I
decided it was time to make a quick attempt at getting to the falls.
The falls is close to the preserve, only one main road and I'd be
there. The drive was smooth until across the main road, there was a
large tree blocking the way. I took a few pictures and cut to the
back roads. The back roads were not much better but passable.
The trails at the falls were
non existent. The water had risen and even at low tide, the damage
had been permanently done. I walked to the sides of the falls and
even found a trail leading to the top, under the Haunted historic
stone bridge(Another blog about that some day.).
I made my way back to the
co-op. On all my journeys, no phone signal from AT&T. Still not
sure if the kids or my mom are alright.
Getting back to the co-op, I realized we were relatively lucky in my community. Some blown off flashing, some damaged siding and some trees but nothing too bad.
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