Well, guys. I thank all of the Angels and Saints and Christ in Heaven that no damage has been done to our home. We have no electricity, phone service, TV, or internet connection. Luckily, we are reaping the benefits of having so many windows in our home—there is tons of natural lighting during the daytime, which helps me do my homework efficiently. Even though you’re reading this in my journal, what you don’t know is that I am writing this in an actual journal, until I can update my Gaian one. All five of us (Mom and Dad, my little sister, my cousin and I) slept in the master bedroom, and Ike hit at 1 AM last night. Before then, there had been series of power-outages, some lasting less than one minute, some lasting up to an hour. After having one power-outage cut short the history of the Mrs. Butterworth saga, we all went to bed. When we woke up between 8-11 AM, no interior damage had been done to the house; the backyard and the courtyard have some blown-down branches and clusters of leaves/bark, however, and those will be cleared in time. My main concerns, as of now, are a) the food in the fridge b) the fact that there’s no internet and our sole connection to the outside world is the radio. I have a bunch of stuff on my computer that needs to be written and painted. All I can do is my “manual,” old-fashioned homework. I might as well get started. Love you all. <3
P.S. I'll be posting pictures sometime this weekend. At 4-5 AM, the wind was so harsh that the strong, enormous pines that dot the outskirts of my neighborhood were being snapped like twigs, their branches touching the ground. The lack of air conditioning in a city that’s so hot and humid is hell itself. I’d also like to mention, now that I have your attention, something that should be common sense, but for almost 2,000 people in mandatory evacuation zones that had to be saved hours before the storm, wasn’t. If you are in a city/town that is prone to natural disaster, and your mayor is declaring your location—based on zip code—a mandatory evacuation zone, please—do your family, your community, and yourself a favor and get out immediately. Seriously, when you’re in a mandatory evacuation zone and you choose to “ride out” the storm, you’d better be prepared to stick with that decision. It takes brave, courageous people to walk into bad situations to save others who knowingly chose to place themselves at the mercy of mother nature. So far, three corpses have been spotted floating among the debris—don’t put yourself and others through that and evacuate. Human life and health cannot be replaced once it’s gone.
Right now, obviously, we have internet; my sister and I won’t be going back to school until next week, apparently. Thank you for your prayers and thoughts, to those who spoke to me to wish us luck and peace—they really shone through. In our entire neighborhood, we’re the ones with the least amount of damage, and we were the first to get our electricity and internet/cable/phone service back. So, if you said a prayer for us or kept us in your thoughts and hopes, I thank you, and may God bless you.
