Hurrican Irene

Hi Everyone,

   This past weekend we had the hurricane hit. On Friday I went to go purchase supplies, because I didn't have all  that I needed. It was chaos at the stores. No stores had batteries or flashlights. The only candles that were available were tea lights or decorative. Luckily I had friends who shared what they had. Normally I have supplies on hand, this time around I needed to stock up. 
   At the stores people were a bit crazy, in the parking lot two women were screaming over a parking spot. I live in a wooded area, surrounded by trees and more trees. It is beautiful, but not great for power lines. 

 We lost power Saturday night by 10pm. We thought it strange, because the storm was just beginning to hit our area, so it was strange. We live in an older house, so lost not only power, but water as well. Luckily we can flush the toilet if we can pour a bucket of water into the tank to refill the water in the bowl.  On Sunday we went out for drive, to see how everything was. We turned from our street onto the main road and we saw the reason we still don't have power.

I drove by this morning and it was still blocked off, and not touched yet. Too bad, because that means there are worse areas that need to be fixed before this.  During our drive we stopped at a church member's house and they still had power. They only live about a mile away from us. We stayed and ate and played games. They we got a call that someone needed a shop vac to suck up the water flowing into their basement. So three sister missionaries, Bro Jones, and myself left to go help. On a good day it was only about twenty minutes from where we were in Mendham. This was not a good day to drive, but we still went.

On one road it was flooded, but the water didn't look too deep, so we tried to cross. I volunteered to get out and walk in front of the car to see how deep the water was.

I walked about fifty feet before it came up to my knees and we decided to turn around. Behind me the water was flowing a bit faster and was making me a bit nervous...good thing we turned around then.
    We never did make it to help the person, but in the time we spent out on the road, we were able to see first hand how much damage and chaos the hurricane left behind.

I will post more later.