Back from the Abyss

Thank the gods, we are back!  We have been without electrical power since yesterday when a storm with 95 mph winds came ripping through, creating havoc.  Compared to our neighbors, we were lucky.  But they can whine on their own blogs.  This is my whine.   When the storm came through, I felt like I was back on Guam facing a hurricane.  Rain driving straight across and stuff flying everywhere.  I am so glad DB sawed down the three trees behind our house last spring.  I am sure they would have been decorating our family room today had he not chopped them down, against the advice of yours truly.  

The electric power went out in our neighborhood.  Lots of fun in 103 degree heat.   How did the pioneers manage without air conditioning??  Those soddies could not have been that cool.  Fortunately for us, we had a friend who loaned us his generator so we used ice in our two refrigerators and one freezer last night and picked up the generator this morning and plugged the appliances in to it.  The last time we had a major outage it lasted ten days in the cold of winter and was caused by an ice storm.  We were lucky to get power after only ten days.  We were headed toward a motel tonight if the power had not been restored. 

On the up side of the storm, we got to sit outside until late last night, chatting with our neighbors.  I noticed this morning they had hooked their RV up to a generator and were staying in it.  (Not  as a result of our chat.)
So many neighbors had generators running that the noise outside this morning was ear splitting.

Oh, another thing DB did that paid off during this storm was using steel uprights placed in conrete, to support our cedar privacy fence.  Our neighbors' cedar uprights snapped right off at the base.   Our fence held and all we lost were a couple slats and one cross board cracked but stayed in place.  I hate working on fences.  They have the right idea out in Anthem, AZ.  They use concrete block walls for privacy.  Of course, here in OK, those blocks might find their way through a window during one of our twisters.

  I wonder what it would cost to build a minimum 2400 sq. ft, fireproof, earthquake proof, tornado proof, floodproof house.  I would be willing to bet someone has tried it.  Maybe an defunct nuclear missile silo would work.  NORAD probably has a building that meets those requirements.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPvZYKXGd5A