After Hurricane Wilma

And a good day to you dear readers! I am happy to say that I am finally back, lights, water, internet and all! What a crazy few weeks this has been! I wanted to thank both Daedalus, Deborah, and the Rev. over at Less People Less Idiots for their well wishes. What can I say, but that hurricane Wilma was a bitch. I am even back on the benifiber—damn-it, damn-it man! As you might have noticed, from my ill formed posts during the storm that things got a bit dicey here. First, of course, was the fire outside of my bedroom that my husband and I, as well as our neighbors, tried to douse before the storm got bad. The four of us stood outside and sprayed down our roofs (we had to avoid the tree because the electrical cords were tangled in the tree) in hopes of avoiding a house fire. The main problem was the wind that kept feeding the flames and the fact that at the start of the hurricane there was no rain at all. Then the fire truck came—well, that was as much help as an ill informed, well . . . president. They looked at the fire, told us they could do nothing because the storm was about to cross over and the electrical lines were sill live. So they left and told us to go into our houses—yes the ones that were threatened to be burned down. Hum . . . lovely choice . . . possibly “get it” because of the storm or “get it” because of the fire—we four folks, as well as a nice lady across the street, were freaked. As luck had it, we finally had a huge rain down fall that quenched the flames and left the trunk a red burning log and, eventually, put that out as well. Next, I watched as a tree fell on the roof of our car, but again we lucked out and only got a crap load of dents and scratches and a broken tail light. A few windows were bulging in and out—that was a bit nerve-racking. However, all and all we faired just fine except for being on the last of the list to get electricity back. Our trees did not fair as well and our front and back yard looked like, well, a hurricane hit it! The funniest thing (well kinda) was the fact that because we are the last house on the street, and because the direction of the wind was hitting our house straight (as opposed to sideways), we got the entire streets debris in our front yard. You know your space looks bad when it’s your house that the lookie-loos stop to take photos of it! But as I said, it looked worse than it was. Many of our neighbors did not fair as well as we did. We had our other neighbor’s roof in our back yard (not the whole thing but a really good portion) and the houses across the street got it bad as well. Our landlord, however, had recently replaced the roof on our place so we only lost a few tiles. I saw a lot of horrible things after the storm, things that break my heart. And things I will be writing about in the next few days. They say that a hurricane is a great equalizer (meaning all people, despite economic standing and social standing). This is a bunch of bullshit. A hurricane may not care who it hits initially (which also might not be true as they seem to love mobile homes), but the truth is that in the end, life is not equal—not even by a long shot. And I wish to tell some stories about who got (and are still getting) the short end of the stick. Peace. Rebecca