Back to Normal

Sunday, September 14 the city of Louisville came to a screeching halt. Life was normal as we went to church. It was a beautiful, sunny day. After church we strolled through Sam's Club as we do every week. While we were there we noticed the lights flickering. As we headed to our car my calves started to hurt as every little rock and pebble slammed into my bare legs. My short hair was covering my face and it was difficult to walk to the car. The remnants of Hurricane Ike came through Louisville at about 70 miles per hour. We made it home just fine, but about an hour later we lost power. I looked out our bedroom window and saw a tree that had fallen on the neighbor's house. Siding was blowing off the house next to it. The wind was so loud I was afraid that Owen's bedroom window was going to break. We never got any rain - just lots of wind.
Ben went to work Sunday afternoon while Owen and I stayed home without power. Owen couldn't sleep so we played all afternoon with the windows open since we no longer had air conditioning. Thankfully I had one friend who had power and she came over and took all of my frozen food home with her. She saved me a lot of money! I had 17 pounds of chicken, 7 pounds of beef, 2 pounds of salmon and a few bags of frozen vegetables that Teresa saved for me. Thank the Lord!
The next morning we still didn't have power and we learned that 75% of the city was without it too. At one point, I heard that 340,000 homes were without power including 12 police stations and over 100 schools. Governor Beshear issued a state of emergency and schools were closed for the entire week. The Temple and the seminary didn't have power either so neither Ben or I could go to class or work. The news stated that it would be 10-14 days until all power was restored. So what did we do? We left town! Living in an apartment makes it difficult to live without electricity. We no longer have a grill or a gas water heater. So we couldn't cook, couldn't shower, couldn't do laundry,couldn't work, couldn't go to school - we couldn't do anything! Another friend told me that even the fast food restaurants and area grocery stores were running out of stuff. Ice was getting hard to come by. So we split. Thankfully we had enough gas to get out of town since Ben had filled up the night before. We packed our dirty clothes and drove around numerous felled trees as we made our way out of the city.
We enjoyed a nice, unexpected trip to Michigan. And the Lord answered my prayer by restoring power before we arrived back home. We were gone for a week - and so was the electricity. We returned home the same day our power came back on.
It sure is nice to be in my own bed and in the comfort of my home. It makes one appreciate the things we so often take for granted.