Everything I Did While Trapped in the House without Power after Hurricane Helene
Surprisingly a lot
Last Friday, Hurricane Helene took a left turn and headed north into the mountains.
My home and property survived largely unscathed from the sheer destruction that has devastated some of our friends—particularly our neighbors right across the border in North Carolina.
In that respect, I have nothing to complain about.
I did face my own issues, however, including going without power for six days and spending the first half of that period alone in my dim house under the trees.
And while I struggled with practical matters related to food and water and candles and gas and generators, my biggest battle was the one fought with my own mind.
This is not the first severe storm I’ve weathered—not by a longshot.
I spent the last thirty-some years living on the Atlantic coast of South Florida, and while I’ve hunkered down and ridden out storms up through major Category 4 hurricanes, I’ve never done this alone.
As it turns out, it’s not just the storm but who you’re with that makes all the difference.
Or not with, as the case may be.
As I found out, having an extroverted personality and hyperactive brain is not conducive to being cut off, and keeping my mental health on the rails turned out to be my biggest fight.
Those first three days without power, I was in a state I described to a friend as “Miss Havasham-ing around.”
What does that look like?
Read on.
Here’s everything I did while trapped in the house without power because of Hurricane Helene:
Cleared the yard. Fortunately—miraculously, even, considering that I live in the woods—no trees came down on the house, the car, or even in the immediate front or back yards. There was quite a lot of other debris to deal with, though. Well after the storm passed, I spent time clearing large branches, sticks, and even what looked like a few entire tops of trees that had somehow sheared away and landed, sitting upright like so many broccoli florets, in my driveway and on the street. At one point, I got so bored that I considered picking up all the individual leaves, but it never quite came to that.
Read nine books in four days. These were not necessarily the books I wanted to read (I couldn’t access my digital library shelf at the time); nevertheless, they were nine books that I more or less enjoyed reading.
Searched for the Hupmobile. On Day 2, I entered some sort of mental fugue state in which I became obsessed with figuring out which book I’d read in the past had a character who drove a Hupmobile. Here are the clues I had to go on: I knew it was fiction, and I had a feeling it was either middle grade or YA. I felt that it was one of the books I’d read aloud to my nieces and nephews at one point. So I group-texted said Podlings and asked if they remembered. Two of them suggested A Teacher’s Funeral by Richard Peck, which I did not have on hand. I did, however, have one of his other books, A Long Way from Chicago. This, I thought, would be better than nothing. And then, lo and behold, there it was. The Hupmobile, which Grandma Dowdel drove to the county fair right there on page 67.
Finished an 11-mile training run. This was especially challenging because I had no power and therefore could not use my treadmill. Since it was only Day 2 after the storm and the roads weren’t clear yet, I also didn’t want to run past the end of my street, which is really just a lane. So I set my fitness watch on “treadmill” and ran laps and loops inside my house and around my property. Since I didn’t want my neighbors to think I was deranged, I mostly ran loops inside my house—which is, in fact, the more deranged thing to do.
Cleaned out the fridge and freezer. The absolute worst way to discover that you had a hand of frozen black bananas tucked into the bottom of your freezer drawer is after they have become unfrozen. Touching them was a sensory nightmare. I didn’t have any plastic gloves, so I tied plastic grocery bags around my hands and hoped for the best.
Mashed myself into the Texting Corner. Up where I live, cell service is fairly spotty even on a good day. For the most part, I rely on Wi-Fi to stay connected to the world. When the Wi-Fi or the power’s out (or, in this case, both), I’m more or less up a creek when it comes to communication. A few days into the calamities, however, I found that by standing in a specific corner of my office, face smushed into my rack of running medals, I could reliably access a sliver of cell service—enough to send out batches of texts or even—wonder of wonders—have entire text conversations, depending on how long I felt like standing face-first in my rack of running medals. #MakingMemories
Daydreamed about fried chicken. Why this was the food my brain chose to fixate on I could not tell you, other than the fact that I had no way to make it or buy it, and the human brain loves irony. I wasn’t going hungry, but in the long dark hours of evening, as I settled in on the couch with my books and my rechargeable LED lamp, all I wanted was an entire bucket of fried chicken in my lap to snack on.
For the first three days, I was mountain-bound, drifting from the couch to my texting corner to the generator on the back porch to the kitchen—flashlight in my hand or pocket, hair standing on end—inhabiting a liminal space in which my thoughts did not travel beyond the next book, the next meal, the next cold shower, the next hot cup of coffee.
Toward the end of the week, I was able to get down the mountain and find refuge with some close connections who’d gotten their power back.
That first night, we were all so exhausted. We’d been struggling for days, finding ways to work our various jobs and survive our disparate situations as best we could.
They had already survived their own fridge-and-freezer purge, and though the stores were open, none of us had the energy to shop, let alone cook.
“I’ll buy dinner,” I told them, happy to have a way to contribute to the household.
Also happy for a logical reason to buy an entire bucket of fried chicken.
While recovery efforts are well on their way here in Upstate South Carolina, our hearts go out to our northern neighbors in WNC.
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I feel like I should say something but I don't know what to say. I'm just glad you are okay.
Now I want a bucket of fried chicken. Glad you were safe.