MrBun&Daisy, I’m glad everything went okay!
After two days, we finally got power back last night! We didn’t get flooded much at all, we’ve had regular thunder storms that caused more flooding than this. Other than one big tree that came down and ripped off the power cable a couple of houses down, we didn’t have much damage in our immediate vicinity. At first we figured the storm just wasn’t as bad as expected, but after driving around the neighborhood we realized that we just got very lucky. Tons of giant trees were down all over, crushing cars and boats, we saw one house that got completely demolished by a tree. For us, the worst came after the storm. No power for two days was annoying, we had to throw out a good bit of food, but considering the damage we saw they fixed it faster than expected. Yesterday I went out to get some water and cat food, BIG mistake. There is one road with Tractor Supply at the end, and two fast food restaurants to the sides. Tons of people were trying to get food there, and even more people were on their way to TS to get generators. It took me an hour just to get into their parking lot. Once I got there, I was thinking “Finally, this is it!!” Thirty seconds later I rounded a corner and was faced with parked cars blocking my way, people were just parking randomly where ever there was room. So then I was literally stuck. After a while a nice lady came over and helped me get out (not totally selflessly, as I was blocking her truck , but I was still very grateful). So then I finally made my way inside, and what do you know, they didn’t have the cat food. So then I left, and made my way to Walmart. One entrance was closed, the other had a line of people wrapping all along the building, I turned around and left. Managed to grab some water at a different store, and was on my way back home. After a while, traffic slowed to a crawl, there was a police check point. After what seemed like forever, I got to the front, and they told me I wasn’t allowed back in until several hours later. They were trying to keep the evacuees out. I tried to tell him that we didn’t evacuate, I just went out to get some water, but he wasn’t hearing it. Sure would have been nice if someone had put up a sign, saying “If you decide to leave this area, you won’t be allowed back in until…”. Nope, they had happily waved me through on my way out. Made my way to a second check point, the officer there was very nice and let me through after I explained my situation. So, after 4 flipping hours, I finally got back home. Rant over.
Still, we got very lucky, lots of people have/had it much worse.