Upstate Updates: Hurricane Helene

The Monday before the hurricane hit, Henry had a cross country meet. This one was at a small Christian school, so there were only five teams that participated. When the girl's race began, it was hot and sunny. As they ran, the clouds started rolling in. By the time the boy's started, it was sprinkling and it wasn't long before the rain showers hit. Henry ran this race with a friend and kept pace the entire time, which shaved 3 minutes off of his usual time, so he was very pleased.

By week's end, Hurricane Helene was on the way. They cancelled school on Friday in anticipation of the storm. And boy it came. At 5:15 a.m. Friday morning, Josiah and Caroline were already in our room. The power was already out. We just sat and listened as branch after branch hit the roof and fell. There were a few moments of big thumps and crashes, but it was pitch black out and we couldn't see what was happening just yet. The wind gusts were fierce. When all was said and done, our city, Anderson, received the 4th highest wind gust of the storm - 72 mph. When light hit, we saw a lot of trees down. We had a giant tree fall in the backyard and we felt incredibly blessed that it went parallel to the house. It did destroy our white fence. Our next-door neighbor lost three giant trees in front of their house and one in the back - all missing the actual house. Our driveway was covered with branches as was the front yard - just a lot of tree debris. We spent a lot of Friday and Saturday cleaning up the front yard. Our neighbor on our other side helped us cut up the tree a bit so we could get our cars out. He kept some for firewood, too, since it was red oak. All of Todd's tools were electric, so we didn't have anything but man power to start.

Friday evening, the kids and I decided to explore a little in the car. We needed to charge our phones and we were curious about what things looked like beyond our street. We tried the street behind our house and were quickly forced to turn around. There were so many trees down it was unbelievable. The trees here are huge, so when they fall they cover large areas. I tried to take a few pictures, but they really do not do it justice. The house at the end of the picture had five huge trees fall just in their front yard, which blocked the road. They had at least another hit the back of their house.

We turned around and got to a main road. What I did not anticipate (although I should have) was all the traffic lights being out. Texans deal with hurricanes more frequently and they are incredibly good at knowing that nonworking traffic lights mean a four way stop. Here, not so much. There were a few traffic lights where I just inched out and said, Here I come. You better stop!

In all the driving we did, we passed only two working traffic lights. There were only two stores open as well - Culver's and Bojangles. We decided to try Culver's to get food for dinner. It was packed. After staying in the drive-thru lane for 15 minutes, we had inched up enough to get a parking spot. Inside, they said it would be an hour wait for food. We waited - I did not see anyone walk out after being told that. After we ordered our food, the cashier asked, Are they triples? We haven't had that in a while! Nope. Not triplets.

The following day was followed by more clean-up. We finished the front yard on Saturday. We hit the backyard on Sunday, at least the part in front of the giant tree. Sunday was Todd's birthday, so we started the day at the only other restaurant we knew to be open - Bojangles. It was another hour wait in the drive-thru (no one was allowed inside), but we didn't mind the waits because it gave us time to charge our phones. For dinner, he got Little Caesars pizza. A few other restaurants had opened, but not many. We were waiting along with a number of other people when they brought out one man's order. His shirt said Anderson Emergency Management and he proceeded to take 30 pizzas to the trunk of his car. I don't know if it was for the linemen, but he was feeding a crowd for sure.

Since we couldn't make a cake, we got Todd a little pecan swirl and stuck a tea light candle next to it - I left all the cake candles back in Texas. He did get his real cake (pumpkin bread - with a tea light) after the power came back on.

On Friday, we all guessed a time when the power would come back on. We all lost that bet. On Saturday, we placed our bets again. On Sunday a few of us placed bets, before we gave up on the game. I think it was Sunday when we heard it could be at least a week before the power was restored.

Our days were spent cleaning up the yards, playing a ton of football, puzzles, board games, card games, walking the neighborhood, and sleeping when it was dark out. That meant we were in bed by 8:15 p.m. every night. We all caught up on our sleep. The best part of playing football in the front yard were the ducks in the pond across from us. When they quack, it sounds exactly like laughing. One of us would toss the football and they would quack/laugh and it was hilarious.

Josiah and I spent a good part of one day finally unpacking his Legos. They all survived intact. He also made a music video. Itsa Mario.

Monday night, we were in bed at 8:15 p.m. again when we heard a bunch of beeps and clicks. We had power. Our next-door neighbors told us that in the past whenever the power was restored, that just our two houses would come on first and the rest of the neighborhood still be in the dark. That was exactly what happened. Our two houses had power three full days before the rest of the neighborhood. We had power trucks here every day (starting Tuesday), but whatever the problem was, it took a long time to fix. We had power companies from all over and it was neat to check out their license plates when we passed them. PA, AL, FL, NC, some even said there were companies from Canada, but we never saw those trucks.

School was cancelled through Wednesday. Thursday morning we went back and we heard quite a number of stories. In Caroline's class, a tree fell on one of her classmate's houses into their playroom. In Josiah's class, his friend had several trees fall. One crushed their minivan, damaged their other car, and another tree fell into their house. In my class, I have twins who were sleeping in their beds, woke up because they were scared, left their bedroom, and 20 minutes later a tree fell into their bedroom. The girls tell me their house broke. It's been a tough week for many. We feel for western NC as well with so much destruction there. It's devastating.

Friday night, the boys went to a surprise birthday party for the kid whose house and cars were hit. They had a great turnout and the kid was genuinely surprised. It was a big positive in the midst of a tough time for him.

Henry bookended these two weeks with another cross country race. This time it was just his school doing their traditional relay race. They paired them off - fastest runner with slowest runner - and went down the line until they reached the middle two. They added their times together and then had a staggered start which, in theory, they all should have finished at the exact same time. It was a 10k, 1k at a time. Henry's team started last. They had to wait a full 8 minutes after the first runner started. It was a tough run because it was in the middle of the day. They were all pushing it too hard and at least one went to the grass to throw up after a round. A few others looked like they were going to, so we avoided part of the grassy hill when walking. At the end, they had pizza for them. The course was basically the tree line with the trade-off area behind me to the right. Henry was able to run with this girl for most of the rounds, which was good because they had a very similar pace. They were able to keep each other motivated. Henry's team was the 14th to start and they finished 11th, so they moved up a few spots.