Too Much of a Good Thing

Just a few short posts ago I was telling you how I had managed to work on cleaning out my refridg. However, even after all that, I can now report that it is even cleaner than I thought possible. How is that possible? It's possible because of leftovers. Not leftover food as you would imagine, but because of leftovers from Hurricane Ike that blew through our area on Sunday. Who knew what we were in for? Certainly not the weathermen (big surprise). Beginning Sunday morning it started getting a little windy, nothing shocking, just a gust now and then. Nothing to be concerned about....that is until later. Around 1:30 pm we left our home to go to a local nursing home where we have a service once a month. It was quite windy at this point and as we drove there we saw shingles flying around, tree limbs down, and even a tree that had fallen in someones yard. Just as we got inside we heard that a tree had just fallen down in the back of the nursing home and they were expecting another to come down soon because of a large crack in the tree. We held the service as usual, even though about half way through the power went out. They have a back up generator so it was less than a minute that the power was off. When we finished we headed out to the car, but one of the staff asked the children and I to wait in the foyer while Brian pulled the car up to the door. They were concerned about us getting hit with debris (branches, shingles, etc) that were flying through the air. It was amazing to feel how the strength of the wind had picked up in just an hour! Wow! We know now that the winds were sustained at 45-49 miles per hour with some gusts up to 70 mph!! THAT'S some wind!! We arrived home to find that our electricity was out, but all of our trees were still intact. However, after we'd been home for about 30 minutes one of the trees in our front yard split into sections and fell DOWN!! The type of tree is famous for being brittle so we weren't surprised that it happened, we were actually surprised that the other one didn't fall as well. Later in the evening, while we were at church (they had power), our neighbors plum tree fell into our yard smashing part of our fence. We didn't discover the neighbors tree until morning because the power was out everywhere and our whole neighborhood was dark. Actually, the power was out for miles around. As of Sunday night they estimated that around 650,000 people were out of power in the Dayton area. We were not the only ones! After 48 hours I had to throw out all the food in our refridge. and freezers. There wasn't an ice cube for sale in the entire area so there was no way to save anything. I was able to put a few things at a friends house, but the loss was still very drastic. Needless to say, now you know why my refridge. and freezer are in brand new condition!! They're clean and empty!! That's why I said "Too Much of a Good Thing". Clean is one thing, but Cleaned OUT, that's just plain bad! I know the Lord will provide the means to restock our losses, he is always so good to us. In fact, even though we had difficulty we didn't endure a hurricane as the people in Texas have and we don't have standing water anywhere inside our house!! There is always something to be thankful for if we take the time to look for it!
Finally, last night around 9 pm our electricity was restored!! PRAISE THE LORD!!! There are still several people who do not have power yet and some may not for another week! We were able to cook some foods on our camp stove out back so that made it bearable, but some people have had to go to shelters and such because they have no way to feed themselves. At first many of the stores and restaurants were also closed so people were really in a bind. Now as the days go by, more and more places are open. The restaurant that Brian works at has had record sales because people are clamoring for places to go get some food to eat. Isn't it amazing how something like wind can strip us of what we consider our "basic" necessities? We're such wimps!! This whole experience has really challenged me to come up with a better plan for some sort of catastrophe like this. Of course, without a generator I still couldn't have saved the food in my refridge. and freezer, but perhaps if I had a better plan I would've gone beyond Oatmeal on the camp stove for breakfast. Maybe, maybe not, but its something I'm going to explore. Have any ideas?? Please share, I'd love to hear them!