In Memoriam

Stephen

We're Still Here

And so is the storm. My Internet connection just came back online after an all night outage. We currently  have sustained winds of thirty-five miles per hour. Last night the weather service reported gust upwards of seventy with one unconfirmed burst of eighty-six.

With the morning light I see our yard is a mess. The rain is heavy and steady. I have no idea how much we've received. All the weather service reports are cumulations at our local airport and they are never the same we receive here in the city. I'll guess two to three inches.

Our power flickered all night but never, thank the Good Lord, went out. I still kept a couple of our hurricane lamps lit against the chance of such an occurrence.

We're very lucky, others not so much. Trees are down on cars and homes. It's sad. Many thousands of homes are without power. Now we face the backside of this tropical storm and we have a long day ahead of us.

One saving grace has been my little 'wind up' Eton radio. If you don't have one I'd highly recommend you purchase at least two. They're inexpensive and very nice to have when the power is out.

I've been awake all night and I feel the lack of sleep creeping into my sore body. I paced all night, took flashlight trips out into the rain several times. Every bump and wind burst had me up and out on the check for downed limbs, the condition of our roof, and my truck. The truck survived, so far, without a scratch. My morning paper even arrived dry.

I'd like to thank all of you, my kind friends, for your words of encouragement and support.

Time for my sixth or seventh pot of coffee. Hopefully I'll sleep sometime today.

Until later, and forgive my lack of edit on this post. I'm just too darn tired to care.

Stephen