Meezermeowmy’s Weblog

Day 2 of St. Patrick’s respite feeding, more volunteers, more supplies.  Episcopal Relief is sending funds, and we received a shipment of to-go boxes and bottled water.

Today’s menu was much appreciated by the locals:  “Bambi in gravy” on rice, with black-eyed peas and mixed vegetables, brownie for dessert.  (I took my diet meal of beans, thank you very much.)  Hunters have donated from their freezers deer sausage and deer roasts.  They have been keeping the freezers going with generators while they wait for power to come back on.

I spend the day on two tasks:  cooking rice and washing huge pots.  I had taken my 19-quart electric roaster to the church when we set up to cook for crowds.  It is Teflon-coated, and turned out to be an excellent way to cook, well, 19 quarts of rice at a time.  The hardest part was watching to make sure Fr. Chad didn’t come in and lift the lid to check on it.  Every time you do that you lose a lot of time while it has to make up for the heat lost!  I’d turn my back and concentrate on scrubbing a pot, and hear the clang of the lid going up – not again!

A year ago, I couldn’t stand for an hour.  I had to sit down in parts of the church service where I was expected to stand.  Now I have served two long days of service doing physical labor in the kitchen, with very few breaks.  I write this as both a hallmark of how far I have come, and as an admission that I can’t yet do three days in a row.  I’ll be home today.  There will be much more to do, with months of hurricane recovery ahead.

Pictures soon.  DH ordered a proper camera for my birthday (birthday went by while he was in the hospital.)  The camera was delivered last night, and its battery has charged overnight.  Now we’ll see what it can do.

Today I received an email from our priest, Father Chad (St. Patrick’s Episcopal) saying

“The disciples said to Jesus, ‘Lord, send them away for it is late and they have had nothing to eat.’ And Jesus said to them, ‘Don’t send them away…YOU feed them!

We have enough food to feed all of Zachary and that is exactly what we plan to do.  If you are where you can, come to the church.  We will feed you and we will put you to work.  Come quickly!  The crowd will be heavy.  This is what the church does, and it is going to be great fun.

So I went.  We cooked elbow macaroni and meat spaghetti sauce, and served it with green beans.  We set up for folks to drive through and be handed plates to go.  Every time we ran out of something, a way was found to replace it.  The seafood restaurant on the corner gave us a large package of to-go boxes.  We used up all of those, too.  Father Chad figured we served about 100 plates/hour for 3.5 hours today.  We’ll do it again tomorrow.

St. Patrick’s is a day school as well as a church, and our teachers were there helping serve food (as volunteers).  Fr. Chad knows how to hold out a carrot – they were invited to bring their laundry along and use the school’s washer/dryer while they worked in the kitchen.  Hey – when you are out of power, such are life’s little luxuries!

Meanwhile, our son-in-law was on the great hunt for gasoline for his car.  He had about 1/8th tank, so couldn’t drive to work around the parish.  (He is a computer support guy for a national company.)  Finally, the line looked a bit shorter, so he gave it a try.  He just arrived home after only 1.5 hours in line, victorious!  Many have spent 4-5 hours in gas lines, so he did really well by waiting.

Here we are, safe and sound. I can’t believe we have power back already! Our subdivision has no large trees, and does have underground utilities. As soon as the power comes back to the main trunk, we are up.

I left home in the rain this morning, leaving behind no land-line phone and no power. I was heading over to the hospital on the chance that they would be discharging DH. Cell phone function was spotty at best, and I wasn’t sure he could reach me when they released him. Zachary had fared better than Baton Rouge. I saw a few big trees down, but nothing in the road. There were one or two low spots where it was best to be in the center lane, but those are the same spots to beware of in any heavy rain.

The hospital staff deserves all commendations for carrying on in style under extreme conditions. They were functioning under generator power, which means lights in the halls, not in the rooms, and an emergency outlet in each room to run essential medical equipment. DH’s nurse had her scrubs cuffed up to her knees to cope with the heat – kinda cute, when paired with her hair in a ponytail. She had to hand write the discharge instructions to allow him to leave. That’s another extra mile!

Both DH’s primary MD and his surgeon agreed he was well enough to come home, but the big problem was getting a pain prescription filled. No pharmacy was open, no power was up in the town. Just when it looked like he would be stuck in the hospital for another 24 hours, the hospital lost its generator power. (Updated to add that this hospital has been evacuated now to Oschner, West Bank – that’s down near New Orleans, about 2 hours’ drive in normal conditions. So glad I got DH home!) That upped the ante to get him home. Primary MD called around and worked his magic, getting the pharmacy beside the hospital to somehow open up. We were told the door would be locked, and the closed sign would be up, but knock, and say Dr. G sent us! It worked!

Travel home was almost impossible. It had been raining heavily for the two and a half hours I was at the hospital. Little puddles became impassible lanes. We were encouraged when, far ahead of us (toward home) we saw a stoplight on. Power!!! But there was street flooding to negotiate yet. We drove past our church, and saw the parking lot under water, and the flood up the front steps, to within 6″ of the church hall. Yipes! The most direct route home was under water, so we went around several more blocks. We did have to drive through deep water just a half a lot from home. A street comes a bit downhill and comes to a T intersection between our home and the home next door. The water roars down that street and makes a turn to the left, as we also needed to. I held my breath and eased through and up into our courtyard. Home safe! I wouldn’t have dared to cross that water if I hadn’t watched it come up in that pattern before, and knew what it was. Even then, it was at the maximum that our car could manage.

There was a human interest story here yesterday. Diane Deaton, the weather anchor for WAFB, was broadcasting from the emergency operation center. Word was received that the windows of her car had been blown out by the storm (parked back at the TV station). She was very concerned because her Bible was on the front seat. Not only did she cherish it, but it had many study notes written in. Diane really hated to loose that! When her 12 hour shift was over she came back to find the windows indeed blown out of her car, and the front seat soaked…but her Bible was completely dry! What a miracle!

We’ve begun the dance to the tune of “Here I go again”. Katrina left us out of power about 6-8 hours, as did Rita, but we were extremely lucky. The television stations advise to be ready for at least several days without power. DH will ride out the storm in the hospital, his surgeon assures us.

Our next door neighbor and his son came over last night and moved our cast aluminum patio table and chairs to the garage. (I had already managed the umbrella and the wind chimes. Don’t laugh: the wind chimes are about 4 feet long!) I haven’t boarded up the windows as they do on the coast, nor have I taped. On the other hand, there are no mature trees in the subdivision, and only the lake behind me, so much less to fly at the house. Oh, and knitting has been selected. In other words, I’m ready.

I will post again as soon as I have power.

On a cheerful note, you haven’t been ignored until you have been ignored by a cat.