Well I was just traveling in Florida on business and while driving from appointment to appointment I was getting drenched by rain. So I turned on the weather report only to discover I was traveling through the reminisce of hurricane Ivan. Hurricane Ivan! The same storm that scared my parents (after having survived Francis and Charley), then pounded my in-laws leaving them without power and with a lot of yard damage (thankfully no structural damage). After playing around with my family, Ivan set it’s sights on my friends that live in Birmingham including 2 day-old Ella. Then of course Ivan made his way to Atlanta to have a little fun with me.
My hurricane story is pretty comical compared to the rest of my family. I mean my in-laws had to evacuate then try to sleep through the pounding of 130 mph winds. After that they had to wait days to make it across town to see if they even had a house left. Thankfully everyone and everything turned out alright; well they did have about a week worth of yard work to do. Then Jeanne battered my parents and my sister (The 4th storm to do so) and had them without power for a day and damaged their pride and joy, their boat.
Me, well when we lost power during Ivan I immediately raced to the corner store for ice and beer. I mean you can get through just about anything with cold beer. Then I drove to pick up my daughter early because I figured things would get worse. The drive over to pick her up normally takes 5 minuets, instead took 40. Lights were out, roads were flooded and trees were down. By the time I got home the neighbors were calling to see if I had any beer (I have a bit of a reputation I guess). So everyone congregated in my garage with flashlights, beer and cell phones. Poor Sheryl had to drive from downtown, a trip that usually takes 20 minuets, took her 2 hrs. But she was a trooper and stopped for a bucket of chicken on her way home.
As the night wore on, everyone went to their houses for change, cards and more candles. We decided that poker was the best way to ride out the power outage. While eating our chicken and dealing the first hand of Texas hold-em, the power came back on. I know it is awful to say, because many were without power for weeks, but we seemed a little disappointed that the excuse for a party had ended so soon. So no one objected when Julie quietly got up, turned off all the lights and we continued to play poker in the dark…we did turn on the TV though.
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