Liberty's Universe: 2011

Hurricane Irene started around 5 PM on Saturday. Steady rain with a stiff breeze. As the night wore on the wind increased and the rain was again steady. When I woke up on Sunday morning, it was still raining, not very hard but drizzling. The wind was increasing and blowing in 30-40 mph gusts. I left in the AM to help a friend do some work on his house. Kate called me about 12 PM and told me the power went out. When I got back to the house at 1:30 the power was still out. Kate and I sat around for awhile waiting for the power to come back on. At about 4 PM we were getting nervous that all the food we had just bought the day before might be ruined. Kate and I had to work the next day, so we decided to go to a friend's house to put some food in their fridge, take a shower and wait it out because they still had power. We hung out there until about 8 PM when we decided to go back home and see if we had power. The whole 5 minute ride home I was pointing out to Kate that this house has power and this neighborhood has power. We were debating if some lights we saw were from power or a candle. As we pulled into our neighborhood, I saw lights on. Thank goodness.. Wait. Halfway down our street, the houses were dark. We were still out. Nothing. As we walked into a dark house and Kate collected some candles, my parents called. My dad asked if I had water in the basement. My heart sank. I totally forgot about the basement. No power. No sump pump. We had a lot of rain here in the Lehigh Valley in the month of August. From 8/1 to 8/22 we had nearly 9 inches of rain. Hurricane Irene brought another 5". That broke the all time record for this area making August of 2011 the wettest month on record. As I walked down the basement stairs I could hear the sloshing. To my dismay I stepped on the floor and the water went over my foot and up my ankle. Great... 4.5" of water stuck in my basement with no where to go. After realizing the futility of trying to bail the water and removing anything of any importance from the floor, I went upstairs. We couldn't do anything. It was Sunday night. Any calls to the power company went right to a recording. Let's just say that Sunday night I hardly slept. Any noise I heard I jumped up hoping I would see the light flickering on my alarm clock. My mind was racing about the basement and what the damage might be. On Monday morning Kate left for work early and I contemplated my next move. A few neighbors had gotten thru to the power company and the reports were 9/1 at 6 PM was the earliest the power might be back on. They were calling in workers from their sister company in KY to help. I couldn't let all that water sit in my basement for 4 days. I started to call around and look for a generator. Most all the places I called basically laughed at me. I started calling further west away from the hurricane's path in hopes people didn't get hit that bad, they wouldn't need a generator. Nothing. Nothing even in Harrisburg which is over an hour west of here. I called the Home Depot in Stroudsburg, PA. They had just got a shipment of 144 generators in that morning. Great! Here is how that conversation went, "Can I put a deposit down and come pick it up." "Nope. First come, first serve." "I am over 1.5 hours away." "Then you'd better hurry." I booked it up north and when I got there there were 4 left. They sold 140 generators in just over 2 hours. I walked up to the Home Depot guy standing next to the generators and told him I need one. His response, "Then you'd better put your f'ing hand on it." Okay... So after spending $950 on a generator that could power half my house, I was able to get it home, turned on, and start draining my basement. Next, I had to get a dumpster. I had a lot of stuff that was ruined. Nothing that important and stuff I was probably going to throw away anyway. Another $500 for the dumpster rental. As I labored (with Kate's help) all Monday afternoon bringing stuff to the dumpster, my mind raced. I'd have to babysit this generator for the next 4 days. As 5:30 pm rolled around I was still emptying my basement, I heard some cheers. Next I heard the familar beep of my home alarm. The power was back on. Thank goodness... Some frayed nerves and $1,650 (gas for generator and other supplies) later the crisis was over...

This is a creek or since I live in PA I must pronounce it crick that is usually 8-10' wide.

This is most likely the cause of our power outage...

Here is the infamous $950 generator. If we do the math, Home Depot in Stroudsburg sold $129,456 worth of generators that morning and the State of PA collected $7,632 in sales tax...

After the waters receded...

I finally got around to putting in new wood floors in our family room. Before we had carpet and linoleum. Being a high traffic area, the carpet was getting dingy and linoleum is always hideous. Kate picked out some flooring (3 1/4" x 3/4" Maple) and with some much needed help from my father in law over the 4th of July, we were able to get it down. Kate and I also painted the bottom wood paneling white. It really brightens up the room considering it was very cave like before...

This year Kate and I decided to plant a vegetable garden. Since we are fairly new to vegetable
gardening, we decided to plant just a few of our favorites. Okay, the jalapenos are one of my favorites... What we were unprepared for was the space that the plants take. Namely the cucumbers and the tomatoes. Okay, mostly the cucumbers. They have over grown everything. I guess the good part is that we should have quite a yield. I'll definitely be making pickles this year...

Also, my old college roomate Seth Boyd is partaking in quite an adventure this summer. He and his wife are bicycling from San Francisco to Virginia. He is chronicling his adventure on a blog he set up for the trip (http://sethandmel.wordpress.com). He has posted a ton of awesome pictures already... Good Luck Seth and Mel!