Orphan Annie was right. The sun will come out tomorrow.
Here in the Ozarks, we got our power back Tuesday afternoon, so are back at home after a brief stay at an internet-connected motel Tuesday during the day (so we could continue to "work from home").
I was able to work from home on Monday by using my UPS battery backup to keep the satellite internet connected and running on my laptop battery.
After the power went out, I was able to get thirty or forty gallons of water from the pressure tank (we are on a well) before the pressure ran out; however, we still did not have enough water for the three days we were without power.
On Sunday morning after the storm had passed, our daughter and son-in-law, three-tenths of a mile down the road from us, discovered two trees at the end of their driveways, one on each side, keeping them from "escaping" in their vehicles. We spent a portion of the day helping them cut up and clear out one of the trees so they could get out in at least one of the directions. The county came out later in the day to clean up all the downed tress crossing the road.
Between Sunday and Tuesday, I learned to bathe in 1 inch of water, and felt how refreshing a shower could be using one of those camp-shower bags. We cook with gas, so we were able to have hot water and hot meals. We had to haul water from our daughter's swimming pool to flush.
I think we would have been better prepared had NOAA said we'd have winds up to 60mph. However, all they mentioned was flood warnings. We knew winds that bad would cause a power outage, but did not know until it was too late.
We used a hurricane lantern, flashlights, candles, and those light sticks for light. Of all of those, only the lantern produced enough light. So we went to Walmart and purchased a battery-powered lantern and a rechargeable lantern as well as some more containers in which to store water. The light sticks came in handy at night. I'd start up three or four of them and place them in various places throughout the house in case we got up at night.
Other than having to throw out 80% of what was in the refrigerator and having a 100-foot tall pine tree (see picture below) arm-wrestling with a 90-foot tall oak tree in our back yard (we counted almost six dozen trees downed in domino-fashion in the 1/3 mile between our house and our daughter's house), we are none the worse for wear. The people in Texas still have it worse.
