Thursday, August 12, 2010

After the Storm

This morning I get woken up by the storm from the last day on Earth. The sound of rain and hail blasting my window caused me to rise prematurely from my slumber. I tried to go back to sleep but it was to no avail. I realized that the electricity wasn't on so I immediately jumped out of bed to take a shower. The last place I want to be when the power is out is home. I don't have any windows in my bathroom so I had to use the flashlights to light up the bathroom. The water pressure was low, but it was somewhat warm, so I wasn't complaining. I got dressed and headed for the elevator. I didn't take too many steps before I realized that the elevator was not going to work because the power was out. Luckily the lights in the stairwell were on. I'm assuming they were running on a generator.

When I get to the bus stop I see that traffic is at a standstill. After waiting for what seems like forever, I decide to start walking. Where I was going? I wasn't sure, I figured anything was better than waiting for a bus that probably never was going to show up.

As I'm walking down the street from my complex, I see the full devastation of the storm. Branches were down everywhere. A bunch of trees didn't survive and as they fell to their doom, they took out power lines with them. I came across on such incident. The light pole was cracked and power lines lined the ground. I didn't think they were live but I didn't want to take the chance, so I just crossed the street. When I got to the bottom of the street, a mile from my complex, I saw that the street was blocked off by flares and a dump truck. As I turned the corner I realized why...The river near the dam had overflowed it's banks and water flooded the road.

I kept on walking, I had no choice because there where no buses coming on the closed road. As I turned the bend I was shocked to see a huge tree lying in the middle of the road. There was a service vehicle standing near the tree and the driver looked just as dumbfounded as I was. The tree brought down some power lines with it, I was glad to be on the other side of the road...I walked passed that and walked and walked and walked. I end up walking past the beltway and then I saw a bus going up the street. I figured I was in a part of town where the buses were running so I stopped at the next bus stop until a bus finally showed up. Man, my feet were killing me and this bus was a godsend. The trains were delayed because of some trees on the tracks and one of the stations were flooded, but I got into the city without incident.

Another batch of strong showers is supposed be coming through shortly, I hope the commute home isn't as bad as the commute in.