Tissue & Me

UGH! (Insert Shuler King’s iconic intro) I’s tired, boss. Helene won. She came like a thief in the night. She took parts of my roof, uncovered the crawl space, placed uprooted trees on my fence, took my golf cart for a ride, and huffed and puffed and blew the chicken coop away. Our area is not prone to catastrophic hurricanes, but in the year of our Lord 2024, we got got.

Twice.

In less than 60 days.

Hurricane Debby gave us a preview in August. We made it. We survived as well as our belongings. But this Helene? We were without electricity for 16 days. Over $5,000 was spent on travel, fuel, food, and upkeep for the generators. “Leave, go to a hotel!”, you say? Hotels were booked. Areas far north of us were affected by torrential rainfalls. We had our mini farm to take care of anyway. We couldn’t leave the chickens–they were already homeless! So we toughed it out.

Things That I Have Learned During This Ordeal

• On a hot day, you can heat your bath water by the sun.
• There was no need to go to the gym. We carried and lifted gallons of gas a day.
• It’s possible to live like Laura Ingalls traveling the Oregon Trail.
• Fast food and snacks are tasty for only a few days.
• Kids go to bed early due to boredom.
• Your entire neighborhood will have electricity except you.

I literally heard you say, “whatchumean?” lol

Well, the electric company by the name of Slash Pine EMC, which is paid on time and faithfully each month, left my family in the dark. It was the most painful and hurtful thing to look out of our windows to see all of the homes and yards in the neighborhood lit up like Christmas trees. Our neighbors, less than 100 feet away from us, had lights. It made no sense. Three trucks were in my yard fixing lines and reversing what was wrong. I even masked up, put tissue in my pocket, gloved up, and used a lopper to remove limbs from downed trees so there would not be an excuse for the workers to not help us. They drove away with no intent to return. We called the office of Slash Pine EMC to have the problem fixed immediately, but we were told that no one would know when the workers would return; it could be weeks. That. Was. Unacceptable. The next day, three of us watched the road for a bucket truck. We took turns chasing them down the street until we finally found someone who would follow us home to give us lights.

The crew that worked the day before didn’t flip the switch on the pole. Who knew that light poles had light switches?

Although we had generators, it’s not the same as power from the electric company.