Storm Survivors
It had been a busy week. While on the way to pick up my husband at our train station, it started rain so hard, followed by the wind we had never experienced. Thank God our van is big enough to sustain the blow. I thought it was just another ordinary storm. But when two huge pine tress fell right in front of our van, I knew it was bad.
I asked my daughter to call my husband and my parents. It was too late. We had signal problems. Cell phone towers were busy and we lost power, there was no way we could call in. While we listened to the car radio asked everybody to look for shelter, another tress fell right next to our van. Some of its branches brushed our van windows. My daughter was so scared, starting to cry.
I had to calm myself and calm my daughter. I told her crying would only make things worse. Let's all calm down and find the shelter. I finally was able to find the city parking building and drove inside to wait for the storm.
As we parked in the parking building, we tried fruitlessly to call my husband and my parents. Finally, I got in touch with my husband. We were only two blocks away. He was waiting for us. I just wanted all of us together in this severe situation. My husband told me the wind slowed down a little bit. I then pulled out to the station.
By the time we got there, he was already soaking wet. He waited outside of train station for us. How stupid!! He took the wheel from me. The streets were bad, falling trees everywhere, blocking the roads. We need to pick up our son who was still in day care.
The lights were out in our son's day care. All kids were gether in different rooms with their teachers. They were listening to teachers or parents who arrived early reading books. I was so happy and released that school was very organzied in this situation. When I told teacher that I would like to take my son home. His teacher was very nice.
Normally 15 minutes drive took us almost half hour. Thank God, my parents were all fine. There was no falling branches or house damage. The only thing missing was electricity.
We had been taking so precious thing for granted for so long. Now suddenly without power, our life simply just crippled. We could not cook much for dinner. We have a gas stove. However, it is electric ignited. Without electricity, it was paralized. It took us for a while to locate where the match was. Guess what, we only had two left.
We finally managed to eat dinner. My husband was very creative. I tried to have radio on so that we would know when the rain would stop. But we did not have A battery. My husband somehow got AA to work. But we had to be very careful to move the radio. Because we could easily loss power. The news were not good. It predicted that there would be another storm coming that night. My husband and I all worried about our basement, our sump pump.
We did have battery back up system for sump pump. However, it could only run between 8 - 10 hours. From what it said that ComEd would take a while to get electricity back to our community. Oh, boy. What a mess if the basement got flooded.
My husband did not sleep well that night. He kept checking the sump pump. However, by 2:30 am, the backup battery totally ran out. Next we knew was water in our basement.
My husband tried to buy electricity generator that night. However, all roads were blocked from our house to the main street because of falling trees. So first thing next morning we went up and drove out to find generator.
I thought we should go to Home Depot. But my husband was right. Everybody would go there first. We were told that Home Depot near us sold out generators last night. We got one from Peps Boys. My husband also helped his co worker to buy one. We got the last ones the store had. How lucky.
We did have flooded basement. But we still felt lucky because there was no big damage. All of our family members were doing fine. We also got the generator.
I asked my daughter to call my husband and my parents. It was too late. We had signal problems. Cell phone towers were busy and we lost power, there was no way we could call in. While we listened to the car radio asked everybody to look for shelter, another tress fell right next to our van. Some of its branches brushed our van windows. My daughter was so scared, starting to cry.
I had to calm myself and calm my daughter. I told her crying would only make things worse. Let's all calm down and find the shelter. I finally was able to find the city parking building and drove inside to wait for the storm.
As we parked in the parking building, we tried fruitlessly to call my husband and my parents. Finally, I got in touch with my husband. We were only two blocks away. He was waiting for us. I just wanted all of us together in this severe situation. My husband told me the wind slowed down a little bit. I then pulled out to the station.
By the time we got there, he was already soaking wet. He waited outside of train station for us. How stupid!! He took the wheel from me. The streets were bad, falling trees everywhere, blocking the roads. We need to pick up our son who was still in day care.
The lights were out in our son's day care. All kids were gether in different rooms with their teachers. They were listening to teachers or parents who arrived early reading books. I was so happy and released that school was very organzied in this situation. When I told teacher that I would like to take my son home. His teacher was very nice.
Normally 15 minutes drive took us almost half hour. Thank God, my parents were all fine. There was no falling branches or house damage. The only thing missing was electricity.
We had been taking so precious thing for granted for so long. Now suddenly without power, our life simply just crippled. We could not cook much for dinner. We have a gas stove. However, it is electric ignited. Without electricity, it was paralized. It took us for a while to locate where the match was. Guess what, we only had two left.
We finally managed to eat dinner. My husband was very creative. I tried to have radio on so that we would know when the rain would stop. But we did not have A battery. My husband somehow got AA to work. But we had to be very careful to move the radio. Because we could easily loss power. The news were not good. It predicted that there would be another storm coming that night. My husband and I all worried about our basement, our sump pump.
We did have battery back up system for sump pump. However, it could only run between 8 - 10 hours. From what it said that ComEd would take a while to get electricity back to our community. Oh, boy. What a mess if the basement got flooded.
My husband did not sleep well that night. He kept checking the sump pump. However, by 2:30 am, the backup battery totally ran out. Next we knew was water in our basement.
My husband tried to buy electricity generator that night. However, all roads were blocked from our house to the main street because of falling trees. So first thing next morning we went up and drove out to find generator.
I thought we should go to Home Depot. But my husband was right. Everybody would go there first. We were told that Home Depot near us sold out generators last night. We got one from Peps Boys. My husband also helped his co worker to buy one. We got the last ones the store had. How lucky.
We did have flooded basement. But we still felt lucky because there was no big damage. All of our family members were doing fine. We also got the generator.
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