Holy, Moly, What a Wind!!! On June 29, we had wind go through Terre Haute that was labeled a “derecho!” (der-a'-show) My husband and I knew what it was because our daughter went through one in Cedar Rapids in Spring 2021. Derechos are straight-line winds that could have blown up to 80 mph. In Cedar Rapids, some said these winds took out 80% or more of the greenery. Two weeks ago here, the town also lost a number of trees, including the huge, seven-trunk job that fell across the entrance to OUR driveway, right through the electric generators that power ours and several other homes in the neighborhood. And a second huge tree fell across the road that leads TO our drive, requiring us to use the only alternative left, an access across a neighbor’s property.
About 40,000 homes were powerless for up to five days. We were fortunate to be powered up after 48 hours, HOWEVER, we were without internet for a FULL 10 DAYS. And THAT is the “rest of the story.”
“Without internet,” doesn’t sound TOO bad, right? Let me tell you how helpless I felt when I had NO CONTROL over communications coming in or going out, and no way to get out of the driveway. This included our phone lines and towers that were either damaged or overwhelmed with people trying to reach other people to check on their safety or report other outages. We kept saying to each other, “Just think how much worse others’ situations may be.” That only helped a little. And the outages nearly derailed our family’s 4th of July visit scheduled to begin just hours after our power resumed.
After two days, our power was repaired and enough of the tree was cut out that we could escape and our family could get in. The phone service came back to receive calls, but rarely let us call out, until I discovered a parking lot a mile from our house that allowed better phone service. However, for 10 days I traveled to the public library, bless Mr. Carnegie, to get internet service and news. As a debut writer, in the throws of learning how to publicize my book, I was missing webinars, phone meetings, and vital collegial connections; it was disorienting and stressful, not being able to FIX the problems myself and move on.
And it was TOO QUIET! The other thing I discovered I missed, was—TV. That, too, was part of our 10-day internet disability. Besides keeping up with international news, I found I was more connected to mindless TV than I should be; so I am now reconsidering my evening TV habit. But this situation also helped me begin to understand how our grandchildren feel about limits put on their television watching and internet gaming (a subject for another day!).
Now that 10 days being internet-free, two weeks of family, and theater camp with 36 kids from ages 6-12 have passed, I am back in control of my schedule for another week. I wish you all good fortune trying to stay cool, calm, and collected under the heat dome or from wherever you hale.
Have a Marvelous Monday!!!
Pat
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