Hurricane Irene: After the storm

As mentioned last time, I had to endure hurricane Irene. While the damage wasn't as bad as it could have been, it was rather tiresome.

A comical Satellite representation of Hurricane Irene. CLICK for animation!

When I last left off, I was just describing the aches we had while away from our home. I was staying at my cousin and her husband's place while my parents were at a hotel, and my sister was staying with her boyfriend.

Hurricane threat levels are now apart of Nyan Cat

Sleeping in a new place is rather hard, I'm sure many people have encountered this sort of problem. I slept on an air mattress that took up all space in the room. No TV, so instead I set my laptop on the mattress with some videos I had downloaded; it sufficed for my noise requirement. I didn't get to sleep long, however, and awoke around 3 or 4am. I was up for the day from there, though did sneak in a 10-15 minute nap around noon before my sister came by to help pick up our fridge supplies we had stored here.

We got home, and a wave of relief came over me. It was so great just to be home! Unfortunately, this relief was not to last; I was put to work! The biggest work we had to do was empty out my sister's room of her things. The carpet that was drenched had to be taken out, and we simply did not have enough room to hold all of her things around the house. Sis had to sort and pack up her things, as well as decide what she wanted to get rid of or sell at a garage sale thing she had planned. I got the honor of grabbing boxes and other things, and walking them out of the house. My sister was not short on crap to keep, might I add.

My cousin and her husband (who I shall refer to as Daisy and Cook respectively) offered their attic space for my sister's things. I got the honor of bringing a lot of the supplies up there too, though Daisy, sis, and I worked together on that more than we did at home. Sis was going to be staying with them until her room could be situated.

In those two days (Day of hurricane and the next day), my pokewalker-pedometer picked up over 50,000 steps! My feet were killing me so badly! I was thankful they weren't too sore the next few days though; it seemed a long rest in bed helped a lot; ended up sleeping for 14 hours.

From that time until just yesterday, my sister had been with Daisy and Cook, except over the weekend where she slept on our couch. Only reason sis did not stay overnight with us during weekdays was because she has work early in the morning, and mom stays up late in the living room. She would keep Sis up until late hours every day which just won't do! During this time period, we were feverishly working on both her room and out storage room (which is next to her room).

Basement floor outline, ignore grayspace as that was reference for an older entry.

As we were moving things about, we also went through some of our old stuff. Nostalgia of items of the past was nice a little, such as finding my old creepy crawlers playset (the original too!). A lot of things were thrown out or to be sold at a garage sale. Not too long ago, Sierra, Sis, and I helped paint Sis's room. Sis made it out to be a lot of help she needed, but she ended up doing a lot herself (by choice). A few days ago, we got her new carpet and just yesterday we installed it. I have a few small pictures of the room I took on my 3ds.

Sister's room, still with a bit of junk at the desk.

Only 20 minutes since the room was redone and she already had her first mess!

This morning, we unfortunately had a small "flooding" incident, but it was due to pipes leaking. It was on the laundry side of the basement luckily, but unluckily, she had a new closet we had just bought for her over there. The backing of it got warped slightly. Sis is feeling pretty depressed about that on top of all the shit that happened. Hurricane Irene happened on the week of her birthday to make matters worse! But still, it's pretty mild compared to other things, it's just stressing her out. She is highly considering moving out sooner rather than later now.

Found out my cousin, Olivia's (in past was referenced as O) mother's trailer was flooded to the point where it was no longer usable. Walls and floor was damaged too much, and the smell would stay forever. She lives right near a creek, so she is used to flooding, but it never got this bad before. My aunt apparently didn't lose much else, and did have flood insurance. Based on what Olivia told me, the flood insurance wouldn't cover much anything other than another trailer. For now she is living with my grandmother, which we would not be surprised if she ends up stayign there so she can take grandma's house. We always suspected she would make a grab for the house, but now she has an excuse to. Don't get me wrong, I'm not heartless to the fact she lost her home, but she has been pretty much living at my grandmothers already ever since my grandfather died. Only thing was she just went home to her trailer to sleep. Good thing her daughters are already out of that house; Olivia at my great-grandmother's old house and Ginny (previously referred to as Y) is at her college dorm. One thing that rather pissed my family and I off was my mother and aunt's brother (or my uncle, but i wanted to show that he is not married to the aunt I am referencing) told my mom she should call my aunt and comfort her for losing something. Yet they said NOTHING to us nor offered and single bit of help when we were struggling with our electricity and nearly-flooded basement. It's just another one of those messed up family things I have mentioned; Olivia and Ginny's mother is always the person everyone must feel sorry for, everything bad happens to her. But if anything happens to us, no one really cares unless it is hospital related.

I leave you with a picture Butterfly took to show the hurricane's damage, along with another friend of mine, Mustang, who had got some serious flooding in his area.

Butterfly's neighborhood, north of me.

Mustang's neighborhood, south of me I think.