jumpy jumpy vitamins

Today at work I signed onto my Gmail box and was met with a chorus of “Are you guys OK?” messages. I’ll head off a few questions now.

• Yes, we’re OK.
• Yes, we lost power.
• Yes, we have it back now.

All told, we were only electricity-challenged from about 19:15 to 11:15, roughly sixteen hours — much less time than many people — though the neighborhoods to our north and east didn’t appear to lose power at all. Since most of our outage was nighttime, the worst of the heat had already subsided, but the residual heat and humidity combined with the sudden lack of wind to keep us both awake all night.

Our neighborhood, just south of downtown, was sort of debris-filled. Immediately after the storm we decided to go for a walk, both to kill time and to determine the extent of the power issues, but this walk quickly turned into a rousing game of “Whose roof does that belong to?”. There was only one significant bit of damage that we saw — a parked car with its front end smashed in, and an owner who’s hopefully learned not to park under a sycamore.

After a long, sweaty, sleepless night — and not the good kind — we decided to take a drive in an air-conditioned car to check out a few specific areas we knew might have notable damage. As it turns out, we were 50/50 in our guess; though the Central West End was not that bad, Tower Grove Park was a MESS, with trees and other debris scattered all over. (To borrow a phrase from a co-worker, it was as though somebody had lost control of their giant hedge trimmer.) We didn’t stay out long, though, since many traffic signals were (and still are) out and since many drivers conveniently forgot how to manage such a situation (hint: don’t ignore the light just because it’s off).

Our power was restored at 11:15, just as we were considering a temporary relocation to Fred’s parents’ fully air-conditioned house. With all the windows open, it was very easy to hear the entire neighborhood cheering and shouting and audibly thanking the lineman… and then every single window slamming shut as several hundred AC compressor units kicked back on.

The city has actually handled this fairly well, both in the sense of “city government” and “the people of the city”. There are “cooling centers” set up at schools and community centers; the police and fire departments are evacuating the elderly and infirm to the cooling centers; the people in several neighborhoods we saw were chipping in to help each other clear debris and keep cool.

I think Fred took some pictures during a meander, so I’ll see if I can find them. In the meantime, though, it’s about to start raining AGAIN so I’d better wrap this up while I have the chance.

(Tomorrow night, as long as the building has power, I have a server upgrade; I should be able to blog more then.)

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