Happy to see you here.

Missed you

Glad to see you up and running again!

Welcome Back!!!!!!!! Glad things are back normal. :)

I'm glad you are back on-line, Annie!

Welcome home! 😊

Welcome back to the cyber world! Happy catching-up, and hope all is well in your neighborhood,

It's GREAT to see you!! You've been missed.

Aw you guys are so sweet! I've missed you all too!

Here's some shots from the storm just from walking in my neighborhood.

Some trees were just uprooted and fell over. Always amazed at how little the root ball is for trees that are so tall!

This was the end of my street...

Yikes!! Is this unusual for where you live?

Wahoo is right. Good to see you here again. Wow those pictures are impressive, in a bad way. Guess isolating has been easy. Here’s hoping for no more storms, although a bad hurricane season is predicted.

What a pretty area. Hope it can be cleaned up asap. Yes, a person can really feel unconnected when internet isn't working. Welcome back. It seemed long you were "gone."

Welcome back!

Glad you survived the storm and no trees fell on you! Those are some scary pics.

Annie, happy you are back with the gang.

Welcome back! That was a lot of damage and I'm glad it wasn't worse. Yes, you were missed but we ended up in good hands.

olychick, it depends on what you mean by unusual. We were hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and lost power for 7 days. In 2011, we were hit by a storm...the Halloween storm...and lost power for 6 days. We had a blizzard in 2013 where we got 30" of snow. Then in May 2018 we had a severe t-storm/wind sheer outbreak that tore up a good chunk of the state and spawned 4 tornadoes and a water spout.

So yeah, these things come every so often...in New England, we've had every kind of weather there is. But for the most part, our weather is pretty white bread...much more moderate than most areas of the country...but with a lot of variety.

Now that you have survived 7 days without electricity what changes are you planning on making for the next time. It has been a while since an ice/snow storm took the power out for 14 days but I know it changed some of the things I kept on hand just in case.

Yes you all ended up in excellent hands and a special thank you to dedtired for reaching out to me so she could fill you all in on the happenings.

So physically we are pretty well prepared. I think it was psychologically more stressful, especially on top of covid, the riots, the economic collapse, then to find out that this little tropical storm...that was not even a hurricane and blew through our area literally in about 4 hours caused such devastation...and the disruption to our routines had us on the end of our anxiety rope. For me, losing connectivity was especially hard as I spend so much time with a pc on my lap.

As others have said...glad nothing fell on your house. You survived! YAY! Tomorrow is son's & daughters day....if you need an idea for the Show me yours thread. ☺ Pets count as babies...as do bicycles, cars....☺ Welcome back!

So glad you're back. And thanks to those who kept us going!

Oh yes, one more life saver was our old portable/plug in radio. We used it to get local news and listen to music at night...helped maintain our sanity and supply us with some info. Also, we are old fashioned enough to still get newspapers which also kept me in touch.

I'm thinking though of getting a satellite radio for the house as we are sirius subscribers and it would've been nice to have better options for news and music.

Welcome back! And I thought going without for 40 hours a couple of years ago was bad. That is when we decided to go with a big house size propane gas generator that automatically comes on last winter. Of course no power outages since then.

Welcome back to the GW Annie. We all missed you!

How many messages were in your email when the Internet came back and you were finally able to check? That alone could keep you busy for hours. We only lost power for 2 days but we forgot about the 'low battery alarm' on our security system. Until it started reminding us every 10 minutes with a loud 'beep-beep-beep' - at 1 am. Luckily I called the alarm company and they talked us through silencing it and like you we now have the instructions taped inside the box.

Even though our Verizon landline was out, plus the cable and internet I was able to use my cell phone as a hot spot and could use that to check the news and email on my laptop.

I was able to keep up with emails on my cell phone but was trying hard not to use it too much as I am on a data plan...

I am very glad that your DH had you do all of that stuff. I have known too many people who do not have a clue as to what should be common information. When a crisis happens they have been unable to function.

Welcome back, Annie! Your pics are really something. We just had a huge old oak fall and do damage. No storm here...it was just old.

Annie, my sirius comes due every year, and every year I call and I get a better offer. This time they offered me sirius inside the home, through my Alexa plus the car for only $115 per year. I jumped at it.

Welcome back Annie! I’m glad that you made it through safe and sound...but as you can see, you were really missed!!! This place just isn’t the same without you!

So glad you are back and in good form.

Glad you made it through okay, and it's good to hear that you have a generator. I thought that you did. We do not have one ourselves but I think we could manage okay without one. In 1994, we were without any electricity for two days (although landline phones worked), and the on the third day we got brown-out quality electricity.

I have a radio that operates on both/either solar power or a hand crank. My sister gave this to me as part of my earthquake preparedness supply.

I voluntarily go off the grid from time to time, such as the two weeks we spent on a somewhat remote island in Fiji. At least we had electricity there, and on some islands, the electricity was not available between midnight at 6 AM, which was not acceptable to me, since I have a CPAP machine. Right now, I would be in trouble if we lost electricity for several days and I would not be able to use CPAP, as I have an extremely severe case of sleep apnea, but at least the CPAP machine keeps that under control.

I have to wonder about other people in your area that rely on such medical devices, but I hope also that they have generators. I think I do need to get some sort of back-up power source for my machine.

Lars they do make backup batteries specifically for CPAP machines but any battery with a plug-in would work. I briefly looked at one when my husband wanted to go tent camping in the mountains of Idaho. Check at a survival store or even some place like Cabela's.

Yikes those photos tell a tale Annie! Good to have you back safe and well.

Lars, you raise a good point. DH also uses a cpap and he did without for those several nights which was a problem for him. He didn't sleep as well for sure. We don't like to run the generator all night long as it's noisy, so a battery back up might be a good solution.

The day after the storm, DH and I went out with the baskets, rakes and the saw and we cleaned up the yard....got 3 pick up truck loads of stuff.

A friend bought this HALO Bolt to use with her CPAP and to charge her phones and laptop. There are many battery backups on the market. I also use a CPAP but did without it when the power was out but it was only one night.

https://www.amazon.com/Halo-Portable-Laptop-Charger-Starter/dp/B07FM85W13

I missed you here...and 'there' (HT). I feel exhausted, just reading about your damage and the slog of recovering. (Delighted to know your outhouse survived unscathed!)

DH and I have just come up from our basement, where we sheltered from the very broad storm that brought tornadoes and 100 MPH wind to Iowa. We could have had the same mess you got, but came through with *nothing*. Lake Michigan protected us again.

Adding: My post is confusing. I'm north of Chicago (along with bpath) -- not in Iowa!

WB Annie, glad to see you made it thru ok. Sorry to see so much damage in your neighborhood; it's amazing how powerful some of these storms can be.

Glad you're back and sorry you (and others who were also in the path) have had to deal with this. You were missed.

Our power is often out for extended periods but usually in the winter. The worst is losing power to the community well pump, so there is no water.

One thing you might want to add to your emergency supplies are headlamps.They are so much handier than flashlights and leave your hands free for whatever you are doing and are great for reading in bed.

Oh in bed olychick, I looked really cute. I have a small flashlight which I held to the top of my head with a stretchy headband. But it worked fine for reading in bed.

I also survived having learned that my iphone timer can be set, not just for the chime when timer is up, but to stop playing. So I was able to play a podcast and fall asleep to it...a great substitute for not having tv.

I am picturing you in bed with a flashlight stuck on your head. Ha ha.

i love podcasts. I often listen to the at night when I am trying to fall asleep. I do hope we don’t get the bad hurricane season that is predicted,

Welcome home, Annie. Glad you survived the hurricane. We were lucky. It came during the night, passed quickly with some damage, not to us but to the area. Last year we put in a whole house generator and it brings much comfort. Just have to watch out for falling trees. :-))))

A likely tornado struck my son's neighborhood yesterday! Maybe 2 miles from him, and unusual because it's so near Lake Michigan. He said he wasn't surprised too hear they're calling it a tornado, it was loud and scary winds. Lucky, though, his power only was out for a few minutes. I can't imagine him without his little window AC in the heat and humidity.

Yikes! Scary stuff!

I keep headlamps for several reasons, and I have one beside my bed, in case of power outage. I bought mine at an Army-Navy Surplus store and have used them when camping. There are a lot more to choose from now than when I bought mine 30 years ago.

Wow! I haven't seen big trees like that in a while. Looks like a lot of cleanup. Glad you're safe.

Welcome home!