So, a lot has definitely happened over the past few days. There was a slew of storms which pelted north Alabama on Thursday. There were at least six tornados which spawned from all of that nonsense. Fortunately, neither I nor Ruthie were caught up in it. Ruthie stayed at home that day, which was nice–she started looking online for roofing estimates 🙂 I got home just before the final wave came through, which just so happened to be the most violent one. We we hunkered down in the hallway for most of the evening. The power fluctuated all that time, until finally going out completely.
We spent the rest of that evening reading by candlelight. I found it a bit difficult, mostly because all we had were little votive candles, hardly sufficient for such a task. But, in the end, they did alright. I listened to the radio a little bit in the Mustang before going to bed, seeing how the world was faring since cell reception, and therefore Internet access, was completely down. They were saying power would be down 3-5 days because basically the main lines out of Brownsferry Nuclear Plant had been cut.
So, it was the next morning that we decided to hoof it to Louisville…there was power, hot water, and Ruthie could get the paper done that she needed to write for class. We went to visit mom and dad before leaving. Their house hadn’t been damaged, fortunately, beyond a bit of gutter work from a tree next-door. We asked if they wanted to come along, but they decided to stay behind and guard the fort 🙂
It took us over 8 hours to get to Louisville. We started out down 565 to make our way to 65. It was at that particular interchange, however, that traffic was a total zoo. In the 15-20 minutes we had been sitting there, it hadn’t seemed anyone on 65 had actually moved. So, we got on 65 south, which had relatively no traffic. We decided to make our way through Decatur and then to Florence, where there was power, so that we could gas up before making our way back east to 65 at a more northerly point. When we emerged on the interstate, there wasn’t too much traffic at all until we got to Nashville at rush hour.
And, so, today has been spent relaxing. Ruthie did some shopping with her mom a bit. And then we got a new iPad…I was finding the 16GB one a little cramped for space, so I got a 64GB one and handed off the other one to Ruthie. She was most appreciative to have such a cool little device 🙂
It looks like we will make our way back on Monday, since it sounds as though power might be restored that afternoon. We’ll see…it’ll probably be a good idea to bring down a loaf of bread or two and some extra peanut butter and jelly, just in case 🙂
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