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mazie’s okay, lili’s done

Well, Mazie’s survived. “I have never been through something so scary my whole life,” she said — and this is from someone who went through the trauma of raising me! Rayne took a real beating: lots of debris everywhere, roofs torn off, a few building collapses, and (says Mazie) “the water plant got torn in half.” Today’ll probably go down as the worst day in the city’s history.
But, for my more parochial concerns, Mazie’s house and the two next door suffered only minor damage. The house I grew up in had its back door blown off, an old tree is mostly uprooted, part of a tin roof was ripped off, and part of a carport is teetering on the edge of collapse. But all the walls are still standing, in roughly the same locations they used to. Disaster seemingly averted.
A PR flack today told me I sounded “grumpy as hell,” so I apologize to anyone who’s talked to me in the last two days or (in advance) to anyone who’ll talk to me in the next couple.
I know I just had one, but damn, I need a vacation.

eye close to passing rayne

All hell’s breaking loose in Rayne. They’re still a few minutes from the eye passing over, which means they’re getting the really nasty winds in the inner wall right now. The big tree across the street from my house was just uprooted and smashed into a car. The tin roof on the house next door is close to coming off. Local TV’s reporting four tornadoes within five miles of the house. Mazie’s scared, which isn’t easy to do. My mom’s car’s evidently had some stray tin sheets slam into it. Damn, I wish we had home insurance.
As of 12 p.m., Rayne’s directly at the center of the storm.

hurricane lili keeps kicking ass

10 a.m. update: The electricity cut out about an hour ago at my grandmother‘s house. This is most troubling because that means her oxygen machine can’t run, and she’s only got about a day’s worth of gas in her portable unit. Hopefully this’ll all be over by then.
Lili’s headed straight for Rayne. The eye’s expected to go over my childhood home in about another hour. Thankfully, the storm’s been downgraded to a Category 2, which isn’t quite so bad-ass. And Rayne’s far enough inland that flooding shouldn’t be too bad. Still, she reports there are already tree limbs breaking off all around her, and she’s heard about five electrical transformers explode so far this morning. Damn you, Lili, damn you!