Every Wednesday night around 8:30, I call my parents. A set time ensures that we check in with one another despite busy schedules, and is a tradition turns 13 on August 28, when I moved to New York for college, although the day and time has changed many times over the years. Of course, if something important comes up between our time to talk, we just call each other. I assumed that included natural disasters.
Turns out that there was a huge storm that hit the Chicago area on Thursday night. My parents assumed that the devastation would make the national news and that I would see it, so they didn't bother calling me and were slightly surprised when I didn't call them to see how they were. However, I don't watch TV news so I had no idea what was going on or if it even made the news here in New York at all. I did notice an article in Friday's New York Times about flooding in the Midwest, but a quick skim of the information revealed only flooding in Ohio and Indiana, so I moved on.
On Thursday, I tried calling my friend Rachel to wish her a happy birthday, and found it odd that a recorded message saying that all circuits were busy came on. When I tired her again yesterday, the phone was still out, so I rang her cellphone. She was in the process of digging out her flooded basement and still had no electricity. I decided to call my folks. The phone was also out, so I worriedly called my dad's cellphone. They were out at their monthly Couple's Club event, but cheerfully informed me that their power was still out and the basement filled with 12-15 inches of water and mud.
They are fine, but I don't think I've felt more useless or father away since I moved here.
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You should have been here. The weather went all sorts of crazy, although not as crazy as it could have gone. Our power was finally restored yesterday (after being out for a little over 48 hours), but there are still people in darkened homes, and there are still darkened streets, and many, many fallen trees and excess branches have been collected since Thursday. I think the worst of it was that we were hit with two huge storms (one with rotating clouds...I got to spend some quality time in our cobweb-infested basement reading by candlelight), and even after that, the lightning wouldn't go away and the rain was sporadic. Things are looking much, much better now...the roadways are pretty clear and places are open for business (I wound up parked at a Starbucks so I could steal their air conditioning and electricity to charge my phone).
ReplyDeleteAs for Thursday, my mom kept in constant contact with your parents almost all day...they seemed fine, despite the flooding and power outage. They even called me to see how I was doing, which was pretty nice, considering I was home alone during the entire thing. But I will tell you one thing: despite what these seriously fucked up North Shore people will say, we experienced nothing close to Hurricane Katrina.
Yeah, it is hard to be far away from loved ones when things like this happen. I hope not too much of your mom's wacky stuff was damaged in the flood.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad your fam is ok (and that includes you, Rebecca).
ReplyDeleteGood thing the cell phones still worked.
I'm in St. Louis where we were pretty much spared the worst of it, though there were a lot of downed trees and I think around 50,000 without power Friday afternoon.
ReplyDeleteFor years I naively assumed living in the city would save me. I mean, you don't hear about too much happening, weather-wise in St. Louis city. Last year I was right smack in the middle of one of the worst storms I've ever seen. Over half the city was without power for as high as a week, and there were trees lying on houses and blocking entire streets. Powerless (no pun intended) is right. Powerless and in awe.
I talked to my parents on their cell phones. My cousin got caught driving when the storm hit and fortunately remembered how to get by parents house since she was close by. My parents found her on their porch, but she had said that if they weren't home she would've just sat there because the storm was so bad.
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