Saturday July 9 — Evacuation — That morning, we saw that even though Dennis was still headed right for us, he had weakened considerably—down to 100mph from the previous night’s 145mph. All day long, the winds at landfall were now forecast to be no higher than 115 - 120mph, so we decided we’d stay home and ride it out. We boarded up the windows and spent the day preparing. We went for a walk after supper, and on our way back, we saw many of our neighbors hastily packing up their cars to leave. When we got home, we found out why. The latest 6pm advisory announced grim news: Dennis had re-strengthened to 145mph in a matter of hours, and was once again a Cat 4 monster, and he was headed straight for us. I was terrified. We had no problem making the decision to evacuate immediately. Memories of what Hurricane Ivan’s 135-mph winds did to our neighborhood rushed back, and that in itself was enough motivation to leave. But since we live 1/2 mile from the bay, we’re in a Cat 4 mandatory evacuation zone, so we’d have gone anyway. It took us 2 hours to load up the car with tons of stuff (we learned last year that it’s best to prepare to be away for at least 2 weeks), and we headed out. We went to Philip’s Gram’s house in Crestview (an hour away). Gram was staying with Philip’s parents, so we lucked up & got her house all to ourselves (another thing we learned last year…do not share a house with others if at all possible). The only bummer about staying there was that she doesn’t have a computer, so that meant no internet access for us!
We got there, got unloaded, and got Gray in bed at 11pm (2 hrs past his bedtime!). Philip left us there while he took his dad’s truck back over to our house to get Reagan. We’d had to leave him there because we could only take the car and there was no room for him. We hadn’t been able to split up and take our truck, because it didn’t have enough gas to make the trip to Crestview, and there was nowhere to gas up since every gas station in the panhandle was sold out of gasoline!
Meanwhile, Grayson was having a hard time staying asleep in his port-a-crib. I hadn’t realized this, but he’d definitely outgrown it since the last time he used it (6 months ago). He’s 35 inches tall now, and weighs 30 lbs. He kept waking up every time he’d try to turn over, because there wasn’t enough room for him…his feet were hanging out of the slats. It also didn’t help matters that he was sick with his first cold (his first time ever being sick! More evidence that breastfeeding is the way to go, folks! LOL), and his coughing and stuffiness were adding to his discomfort. When he woke for the 4th time in less than an hour, I took him out, held him for a few minutes, and laid him on a mattress that we’d pulled into the room. He blinked a couple of times as I patted his back, and then he sank into it and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep for the rest of the night.
I went in the living room to watch the storm coverage on TV while I waited for Philip to return from our house. Still no change in Dennis’ speed or strength. I began to pray, reminding God of Psalm 107:25-30. I prayed that he’d weaken this storm, no matter where it ended up hitting. It’s hard to explain, but as I sat there and prayed, I felt all my fear fade away, and his peace flooded my heart & mind. I wasn’t scared anymore—not for our safety, nor for our house. I knew all would be protected. I knew that he was going to still the storm, and that it wouldn’t have 145mph winds when it hit.
Philip returned with Reagan and with Gray’s crib at about 2am. He said he’d prayed about the storm all the way back, and that he’d felt the same peace about it that I’d experienced. We went to bed and slept soundly and peacefully.

Sunday July 10 — Dennis hits — I awoke to steady rain. Not much wind yet. Gray slept in until well after 9am, due to his late bedtime the night before. He slept soundly all night, save for a few coughing spells that never even woke him up. He’d just gotten up for the morning when Philip’s dad showed up, asking us if we’d seen the latest forecast (we hadn’t). Dennis had turned slightly north (more toward where we were) and wind speeds were still 145mph with gusts to 180mph, making it a very dangerous Category 4 storm. He was quite concerned and told us they were getting ready to evacuate to Tallahassee, some 150 miles east. He asked if we wanted to come, too. It scared me a little, but I still felt a strong peace in my heart that God would weaken the storm before it hit, so I told him we were staying put, and Philip agreed. His dad wished us well and headed out. It is totally unlike me to be calm in such grim circumstances, but I was. I wasn’t scared at all. I fully believed that God would still help, despite the fact that no weakening had occurred yet. I still felt confident that it would weaken before landfall.
And, it did. A few hours later, as Dennis was about to make landfall, it weakened significantly, down to a Category 3 with 120mph winds. Still a very bad storm, but exponentially less dangerous than what it had been before. I knew we could deal with that. We spent the morning watching the weather and playing with Gray, watching him watch the trees blowing outside. The wind had picked up to tropical storm force by the time we put him down for his nap around 1pm. Landfall ended up being 2:30pm. Winds in Crestview (where we were) were 60-70mph max, so not too scary at all. I enjoyed sitting and watching the wind whip the trees in Gram’s yard, while at the same time watching the coverage of Dennis on TV. I mostly watched CNN (which I never watch otherwise), because Anderson Cooper was stationed at the Dairy Queen on the Pensacola side of the Escambia Bay. We live on the other side of the bay, just a few miles across from the Dairy Queen, so I knew that whatever weather they were experiencing there, was exactly what conditions must be like at our house. So, even though it looked rough (especially when they caught that Ramada sign blowing down!), it was comforting in a way, to have an idea what the wind was like at our house.
Dennis made landfall due south of our town, and the eye passed directly over it a half hour later. Friends that we talked to who had stayed, said they witnessed the eye go right over them. I also watched the eye passing over our neighborhood, via the local TV station’s radar. The 120mph winds were just before, and especially just after, the eye, and all together lasted less than an hour. Friends told us the worst was just after the eye; that was when the town lost power and the worst damage was done. Thanks to God for keeping the worst winds in just a small section of the storm. Much different than last year’s Ivan, which produced hours upon hours of 135-mph winds.
Gray woke up from his nap and enjoyed watching more wind action as the worst of the storm passed through. At 3:30pm, just as things were starting to calm down a little, we lost power. D’oh! We called Philip’s parents’ house (just a few miles away), and when we didn’t get the answering machine, we knew they’d lost power, too. We also realized that we’d forgotten to bring our kerosene lamp, and we couldn’t find one at Gram’s. So we drove over to Philip’s parent’s house to get their battery-powered Coleman lamp, so we’d have it for the night. The storm was mostly gone by this time; there was still rain and a fair amount of wind, but it was safe to drive at this point. We only saw a couple of trees down, though there was lots of smaller limb debris all over the place, including on the roads. Philip kept having to stop the car and dislodge tree limbs that got stuck under the fenders. We checked out his parents’ house for any damage/leaks (it was fine), got the lamp, and headed back to Gram’s. We called them in Tallahassee and let them know all was well at their house.
We ate supper in front of the patio window, since it was already getting too dim to see well elsewhere in the house. At around 7pm, my friend Kelly called to check up on us. We chatted for a while, and I told her how I was dreading sleeping without the a/c that night. It was just starting to get stuffy in the house at that point. I got off the phone with her at 7:30, and, knowing that we only had around 30 minutes of sunlight left, I told Philip I was going to lay on the couch in front of the window and read while I still had a chance. I did just that for the next 15 minutes, at which time Grayson decided he wanted to snuggle. He climbed up on the couch with me, laid on top of me, and showered me with kisses and giggles. : ) I was returning his kisses, when suddenly the lights flickered on, then off, and then back on again. ! I gasped in surprise, and Grayson gasped along with me, then pointed to the light and said, “UH-OH!” I had to laugh! We had power again! It was only off for 4 hours, and it couldn’t have come back on at a more perfect time than just as the sun was setting. Whew!
The rest of the evening was nice; we just went about as usual, other than not being in our own home. We went to bed thankful for the a/c, with our only worry being whether or not our home had sustained damage. We’d find out tomorrow, for Philip was heading over to check as soon as we got up.

Monday, July 11 — Gray slept in again—12 hours. Philip left for our house at 10 am. I got Gray & myself ready and went over to visit my parents for the morning (they also live in the same town). I was at my folks’ house, feeding Gray his lunch, when I got hold of Philip on the cell phone. He had made it to our house, and gave me the damage report:
No major damage. Thank you Lord! The roof took a beating on the north side (which was from the post-eye winds), and we lost 30-40 shingles. Probably will need a re-roof. But no leaking inside, thank God. The gates blew off the fence, and several sections of fence were blown down. Several of our Liveoaks took a beating; one in particular lost three huge limbs—each one of these limbs is as big as a full-grown tree in itself. We also have a pecan tree that lost most of its top. All the other trees have that beaten, mangled look that I recognize all too well from Ivan’s destruction last year. Other than that, just lots of limbs and leaves and debris all over the yard and lots of debris blown & stuck onto the house. But no structural damage to our home, so we can deal with it, and we’re so thankful to God for protecting it… aside from each other, it’s all we have in this world.
Our next-door neighbor lost about 1/4 of the roof off of his trailer. This is the same lovely neighbor that I wrote about a while back (see June 5 entry). I have no further comment.
Since there was still no power in our town or to our house, we planned to stay at Gram’s until it was turned on. Gram said she was happy to stay at the Sassers’ house in the meantime anyway, since she still has a lot of pain & difficulty from her case of the shingles.
Gray & I came back from my parents’ house and spent the rest of the afternoon by ourselves at Gram’s. He had his nap, and when he got up, we played hide and seek. We had a grand time!
Philip returned late in the afternoon, carrying with him a cooler full of the contents from our freezer. The power had been off for only 24 hours, so most things (especially the expensive stuff like meats) were still frozen and salvageable. However, we did lose a few frozen items, as well as most of the contents of our refrigerator. But at least he was able to save a lot, AND to clean out the fridge and leave it open, so that what happened last time didn’t happen again.
We had supper, and later on we went for a walk. Kelly called again late in the evening after Gray had gone to bed. She was excited to hear we had gotten power back so soon where we were staying. So was I. LOL

Tuesday, July 12 — Gram’s egomaniac neighbor woke me up at 7:20am with his freakin’ chainsaw. That’s my theory of anyone who uses loud machinery that early in the morning: they want everyone to notice them. Otherwise, they’d do it at a more decent hour. Anyhow, at least Gray slept through that and woke up at his usual time. We hung out around the house all morning, and for lunch, Philip & Gray went to get a Papa John’s pizza. Yummy. Gray took a long nap after lunch, and since I was very tired thanks to Chainsaw Charlie, I laid on the couch and fell asleep too, for well over an hour. The rest of the afternoon was lazy and I felt groggy since I’d napped for so long. I felt odd because of it being a weekday, yet here we were lounging around, and neither of us was accomplishing anything. But, when you’re waiting for power to come on at your house after a major hurricane, there’s really not a lot you can do but sit & wait, and try to enjoy the time you’re getting off from your usual routine & responsibilities. It’s kind of like a forced vacation. Only in Philip’s case, it’s without pay.
We went for a walk after supper, and afterwards, I decided I might as well start clearing the storm debris from Gram’s yard. Her yard was covered with big limbs, small limbs, and all kinds of tree debris, and since she has a HUGE yard (at least a couple of acres), I knew it would be a good workout for me to clear it. So I spent the last hour or so of daylight dragging limbs to the road and starting a debris pile there. Philip brought Gray outside to watch, and Gray “helped” by carrying a couple of sticks back & forth. After a little while, he tripped & fell on the asphalt of the driveway, and skinned his knee. His first skinned knee! He didn’t cry much, but since it was bleeding, Philip took him in to give him a quick bath, while I finished up what I could outside.

Wednesday, July 13 — Major yardwork day. After breakfast, I headed outside and started clearing limbs. Within an hour or so, I’d gotten all the big limbs to the road. Now began the hard part. I got her big Waste Management garbage bin, and dragged it with me over every square foot of Gram’s yard. I bent over and picked up every branch, stick, and bough of leaves I encountered. By lunchtime, I was exhausted, but I was only ¼ of the way done. I came in and ate, cooled off for a while, and went back outside to work. The next three hours were torture. It was midday, extremely hot, and oppressively humid. I was sweating so badly, my clothes were soaked, and every time I bent over to pick something up, streams of sweat would pour into my eyes and drip off my face to the ground. I couldn’t help but think of my forefathers (and mothers), and how they endured this kind of hard work and misery every day, just to survive. My legs and arms were covered with scrapes and scratches, dirt and blood. I worked all day long, all the way until sunset. By the time the sun went down, I’d finished the back and front yards, leaving only the side yards for the next day. I came in and took a shower, put Gray to bed, and then I kicked back on the couch, watched LOST, and didn’t move a single muscle until I went to bed. I slept so deeply that night.

Thursday, July 14 — We all slept in. Got up, ate breakfast, went right to work on the side yards. Philip & Gray went to McDonald’s to get biscuits & hash browns. That was a nice break! By lunchtime, I’d almost finished the entire yard, just as a thunderstorm let loose. It was heavenly, finishing up the last of the work, while being soaked and relieved by the cool rain. I came in, took a shower, gave Gray a bath, and washed a couple of loads of clothes. We noticed that Gram’s kitchen sink was still stopped up (Philip had used Liquid Plumber the night before), so we called Philip’s dad, who said he’d come later and check for a clog. He arrived not long before Gray awoke from his nap. He couldn’t find a clog, and surmised it was the septic tank that needed pumping. I was glad to know it at least wasn’t something we’d done. During the time he was working on the pipes, I’d been getting ready, so that we could go over to Philip’s parents’ house for supper. In the meantime, Philip had called our house, which we’d both been doing all week, to check for our answering machine to pick up—if it did, then we knew our power was back on. All week, it had only rang & rang, but this time, the machine picked up! Our power was back on! Hurray! We decided we’d keep our dinner plans for tonight, and leave tomorrow morning for home. When Gray woke up from his nap, we got him ready and headed over to the Sassers’.
Philip’s mom was cooking a pork roast, rice, turnip greens, and hoecake. Yummy! We ate supper, and it was delicious! Gray loved it all, particularly the turnip greens. Afterwards, Philip’s mom left to go to a meeting at church. His dad, Gram, Philip, Gray and I spent the evening hanging out, chatting, and playing. We returned to Gram’s just in time to put Gray to bed, and the two of us spent quite a while straightening & packing up before we went to bed.
I slept only a few hours, because my allergies hit me full-force in the middle of the night. All the dead leaves and yard debris finally got to me, and I sneezed my head off and blew my nose all night long. Ugh!

Friday, July 15 — Heading Home — We got up, got ready, and packed the last of our things, including Grayson’s crib. Philip’s dad came over with his truck and we loaded it and our car with our belongings, our cooler of frozen food, and the dog. We headed home, nearly a week after our hasty evacuation the previous Saturday night. An hour later, as we arrived into town and drove through, I got my first view of the destruction. It was pretty bad. Not as bad as Ivan, but what can compare to that? Ivan was most definitely a 10, and I’d put Dennis at a 5. Coming into our neighborhood, I braced myself for our house & yard. I was unprepared for how badly our trees had fared. When Philip had said “limbs” down, I didn’t realize they were actually humongous chunks of the tree. I was pretty devastated at the tree loss, as I always am.
We quickly set up Gray’s crib, put him down for his nap, and unloaded the rest of our things. Philip’s dad said he’d come over sometime soon with his chainsaw and help us with the massive limbs in the back yard. He left and headed back home. I was thankful for his help, as always. I got to work cleaning out the freezer & refrigerator, so that we could get it running and cold again. While I worked, I wore my iPod and listened to some tried & true 80’s tunes to lift my spirits. It helped, but unfortunately, the view while standing at the kitchen sink is of our back yard, so I was forced to stare at the carnage. Our beautiful Liveoaks, broken and mangled. The once-heavy canopy of shade, yet again changed forever by a brutal hurricane. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I grieved the damage to my beloved trees. When will we get a break from these horrible storms? How much more can our trees take?
I took a break and went outside to get a close-up look. It literally broke my heart to see how badly the trees had fared. I touched the fallen limbs, which were now mostly covered in dead leaves, and felt such a profound ache of sadness at their loss. I kept saying, “I’m so sorry”, over & over, to them (I know, I know–insert coocoo icon here). When I told Philip that, he chuckled at me! LOL! But if you don’t have a love for trees like I do, then you don’t understand how devastating and bitter this kind of loss is. I would’ve made a great tree-hugger, had I not turned out too smart to be a liberal! LOL!
We got the freezer clean and running, and after our evening walk, we transferred the frozen foods from the cooler to the freezer. As far as refrigerated foods, all we had was two half-gallons of milk and some cheese. Everything else was lost, so we had nothing to replace. Unfortunately, with money being so tight, and with Philip not being able to work for going on two weeks, it will be a while before we’ll be able to replace much of our food. I hope things get back to normal soon, so he can get back to working and making some money. These storms are hard on everyone, but for the working poor (yep, that’s us), they’re particularly unfair. We lost our food that was a struggle to have even gotten in the first place. Most people just go out and replace what they lost. But we don’t have that luxury. When you’ve gone two weeks without an income, and you know it’ll be weeks before you have any money at all coming in, going out and replacing what you’ve lost is impossible. But we’ll make do, and hopefully God will provide what we need until we can afford to get more.
A funny example of this is that a couple of days ago, we were walking back from the bay, and I spotted some discarded MREs (Meals Ready to Eat—these are given out to the public after hurricanes by the Nat’l Guard) amidst a debris pile at the side of the road. There were several unopened, vacuum-sealed packages of crackers and a couple of dinners: chicken noodle, and chicken tetrazzini. If you’ve ever seen an MRE, you know that the packaging is extremely durable & waterproof, so I knew that the food inside was fine to eat. I picked them up, and despite Philip’s making fun of me, I took them home, washed the packages in soapy water, and now we can eat them! We already ate one package of crackers, and they were pretty good. And you just can’t beat FREE! Philip thinks I’ve lost it. I probably have. Hey, surviving a natural disaster (for the 2nd time in 10 months, mind you), along with being poor, makes you do crazy things. LOL!

Epilogue — The days since we returned home have been filled with unpacking, re-organizing, cleaning, and waiting on phone and cable service to be restored. We managed to call in a homeowner’s claim, but we have to wait on our phone service to be restored until we can set an appointment with an adjuster to come take a look. Philip can’t do his work until we get our cable service restored, because that’s how he and his colleagues transfer files (we have cable modem only, not cable TV service; it’s paid for by his colleague since on our own we could only afford dialup). I’ve not been able to access the internet for nearly two weeks, and although I missed it at first, I really love the fact that I’ve gotten so much other stuff done in the meantime. I’ve been so busy inside that I’ve yet to get outside and start clearing the huge mess in our yard, but I’ll probably start that later this week. I look forward to the workout, but not to the heat, and definitely not to the allergies that will no doubt flare up again. I’m just now starting to get some relief from last week’s flareup that came from all the yardwork I did at Gram’s house.
The streets everywhere are lined with large piles of debris waiting for pickup—mostly trees and limbs, intermingled with structural debris (i.e., bits of people’s houses, sheds, etc.), and ruined & destroyed furniture. The roads are abuzz with cable, phone, and power trucks, as well as tree service and stump-grinding trucks. Soon, once insurance settlements begin to come in, there’ll be roofers from Texas all over the place. It will be a long, long, time before things get back to any semblance of normal here. It’s an all-too-familiar dance for those of us in this area. We learned the ropes of recovery last fall after Ivan, and thus we all know exactly how this will play out, as well.
I find that I’m filled with anxiety and dread at the thought of the rest of this hurricane season. I’m terrified of the next one, especially because every little depression out there seems to be turning into a super-storm in a matter of days. It doesn’t seem to be IF there will be another one, but rather WHEN, and that’s so depressing. The disruption to our lives is bad enough, but there’s always the real possiblility of losing our home, and that scares me something awful. We have no means to deal with something that devastating. I pray with all my heart that God will spare our area from another direct hit from a storm this season. Please, Lord, remember us here in hurricane alley. Let us have a break.
But thank you, thank you, thank you, for sparing our home and our lives. There’s so much to be grateful for, despite all the sadness and loss.

!!!
We found out this morning via the local news, that special disaster relief food stamps are being given out by FEMA, to cover the cost of replacing food that was lost during the power outage. The amount you get is based on your income and size of your family. We went and applied early this afternoon, and we qualified for the maximum amount: $396! We told them we didn’t need that much, because we only lost about $100 worth of food, but the guy said because our income is so low (and it is LOW, let me tell you!), we automatically get the maximum amount regardless. Whatever; I’ll take it—at least I know we’ll use it responsibly, and it’s not like we haven’t spent yeeeears paying in taxes while others have lived off of our hard work. We’ve had a very hard couple of years financially, and it’s good for us to finally get a return on all the money we’ve paid in. The guy told us that we were the only people he’s seen, claiming an amount so low for our loss; he said most people were saying they lost $700 or more….come on, people! Have some self-respect.
The only downer is that it’ll take two weeks to come in, and there are a few things we need now.
Anyhow, I wrote last night that I was confident God would provide for us…and once again, he has—and then some. He’s so, so good to us. This is more than I ever expected. I love good news!

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