I posted this to my LiveJournal yesterday morning:

I was in the middle of writing this up yesterday when the power went out again. The grandfatherly gentleman that makes the afternoon deliveries for Mister Jim's restaurant (delicious and artery-clogging sandwhiches, but they also make salads, so they have some saving graces) said it was probably the cable people's fault.

Anyway, it's back on now (fingers crossed that it's for good, or at least until I can log this), so here goes:

Power went out at 8:28am on Thursday morning, much to the miffedness of my neighbors and me, since the storm hadn't even started yet -- barely even a spritz. The rumor I heard the next day from a couple of neighbors was that a transformer blew, somewhere. Go figure.

Anyway, Dad and I did not lock ourselves away in my windowless bathroom, but I was mentally ready to make a bolt for it, if the wind showed any signs of getting stronger, or if there was any drastic change in the sky, which didn't happen all day. Looking back on it, I think that was the right decision... the breakfast nook is on the leaward side of the house, and being able to see what was happening outside let me stay calm (when I did go into the bathroom, for normal calls of nature, I realized the sound of the storm was magnified thanks to good accoustics. Locking ourselves in there, in the dark, with two nervous cats would have been mucho freaky),

Instead, we sat at the kitchen table listening to the wind-up radio, while I noted down all the info in a spiral notebook, so I could report back here (another way I kept myself calm). Reading back over it 11 days later, it strikes me that 99% of it is minutae, and rather b-o-o-o-o-ring, and the really interesting bits I didn't record at all. Mostly, it was minute by minute announcements of windspeed and number of poeple without electricity, which can be summed up in two sentances.

Although the official reports of windspeeds from the national hurricane center kept coming in at around 100+ mph, the reports from local TV weather stations were more like 50-60 mph, with gusts to hurricane force (75 mph). (The radio stations were broadcasting the tv news all day, and the "weather personalities" kept saying: "As you can see, the strongest rain bands are here, and here..." much to the amusement of my father and me)

and:

When it was all over, 1,800,000 people in Virginia and northeast North Carolina were without power (Dad said listening to the numbers go up throughout the day was like listening to the announcements on charity telethons ;-)). The latest report from Dominion Virginia Power's website here, say that it's now down to 88,000... Pre-Isabel, that would be major news... now, it's so close to "normal," it's barely worth mentioning... I find it ironic, considering their logo is almost Godlike (can't post it here, but you can see it on their home page).

Imagine their chagrin when they realized how much more power Mother Nature has... and it wasn't just that this was a big storm, but much of the devastation came from all the rain we've had all summer long...

These were the bits that were interesting that I did write down:

(Sometime around 11 am) Fun Stuff - found a radio station just for Chesapeake -- old time jazz, played a record Dad had as a teenager. Then the radio kicked out suddenly -- may have had their antenna knocked over.

2:30 pm -- heard something that sounded like a door slamming. Dad thought it sounded like a window -- went to see what it was and said "uh-oh." That tall, skinny, sickly tree (the one I was afraid would fall and called someone to cut down) did indeed fall -- missing the house by 2-3 feet. A few degrees of a difference, and it would have burst through my office window. As it is, it hit nothing. And as I was writing this, the top of another tree (one of a cluster of trunks) hit the ground -- also hitting nothing (except the ground).

And that's the last thing I wrote in the notebook, so far. I really think that tree falling where and how it did was luck on an historic scale, and I asked one of my neighbors to take a picture of it before the guys of the cul-de-sac came 'round with their chain saws to clean it up, so I could show it to all of you...

What turned out to be really interesting I didn't learn until the next day, and over the next 10 days after that as I lived by the sun without electricity... but I didn't write any of that down (isn't that always the way?). I'll try and write that stuff up tommorrow, or at least soon... Right now, I have to go charge my chair in preperation for running around the supermarket later this evening to replenish my food supplies.

Toodlatoots, Every Buddy!