After the Storm

It's real and it isn't.

For my mom, she learned the house is ok, but can't seem to understand that getting power back into Houston is going to take a while. "Once power gets to the grocery store I can go back. That shouldn't take too long. They're bringing people from all across the country to put the electrical system back together. It can't take that long."

Problem is there are over 3 MILLION people without power in the Houston area alone. That's just for starters. Many of those "people from across the country" have been working their very appreciated fool heads off repairing the electrical systems in Louisiana demolished by Hurricane Gustav just a couple of weeks earlier. There comes a point when you run out of "people from across the country" who are available to help splice together damaged systems. They do have to keep a few people in their own areas to keep their own systems working.

Also, I remember how hard it was waiting for power to come back to my neighborhood when Her Horribleness blew through 3 years ago. I stayed with Mom in Houston and commuted. That doesn't look like a viable option this time around, and, even if it is, it's still a pretty stressful situation. Of course, there's no way I'm planning on staying in the DFW area for however long it takes the power to come on at home! Caught on the horns of a dilemma, aren't I?

This morning, I turned on one of the local tv stations' streaming video to the sounds of someone cutting limbs from a downed tree. My body actually flinched from the sound. It brings back so many visceral memories of listening to chainsaws cutting down trees for weeks? months? after Rita came through the area. There's a part of me that wonders if I can handle that sound for weeks on end again.

Last night, I tried to describe to myself how I felt. The best I could come up with is that I feel like I've been hit by a semi going full bore, drug for a while, and then had the truck come to rest on top of me. I recognize that this is the shock period of the disaster, and also that I'm still in limbo about the particular level of damage my own home has experienced.

What heightens the feeling is that I've only just been back in my home for less than a year. True, it's just a house and the stuff inside are just things. There's a part of me that really isn't tied to what is there. However, there's a sense of "place-less-ness" that has struck me rather deeply. Perhaps it has something to do with my mom's house also not being a viable fallback position at this time. Mom's lived in the same place for 45 years, so that's "home" in a way the my current living place isn't.

It's going to be a long journey through the night this time, I think. There's a bit of "C'mon, God! Twice in 3 years?! Give us a break!!" driving my feelings at the moment. My intellect tells me that the people who experienced Ike in Haiti and Cuba had it much, much worse than most of us. But heart's ruling head at the moment and I'm beginning to think a nice scream or two, with some fist-flailing at God thrown in for good measure, might be a good way to deal with the whole scenario at the moment.

I'll come back in a bit and let you know how that goes! Later!