This is the storm that never ends

Remember that Lambchop song "This is the song that never ends.  It goes on and on my friend.  Some people started singing it not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because.  This is the song that never ends....." and so on and so on.  Well, that's kind of how I feel about Hurricane Irene.  It seems/seemed like the storm that never ends. 

Thank God Irene downgraded from a Category 3 to a Category 1 before she made landfall in NC.  If it would have been any worse, I am not sure what we would have done.  I was so incredibly scared.  The high winds with rain started sometime around 9 pm and continued to get worse all night.  I had been expecting it not to be bad until daylight (a hurricane in the daylight when you can see is much easier to deal with than one at night), but I was sadly mistaken.  Thankfully Claire slept through the entire night.  I don't know how other than the grace of God.  I kept watching her video monitor thinking a tree would crash down on her room anytime. 

Our power didn't completely go out until around 6 am on Saturday.  Without any power, we couldn't get updates on the storm and that made it worse.  We knew it was bad, but we didn't know exactly what was going on.  And there had been tornadoes popping up in places, so we didn't know if we were under any tornado watches or warnings. 

Originally we thought the storm would be over around 1 pm Saturday.  Then we heard 3 to 5 pm.  It was actually almost like 8 pm before the winds subsided.  I know we were getting gusts over 100 mph.  It was crazy.  Claire acted like she had no idea it was something scary, but when the wind would hit the house, she would look around for it.  Very smart girl! 

It was such a long day.  At 9:30 am, I thought it should be at least 3 pm.  Seriously.  We pulled out all of the toys in the house I could find (whether age appropriate or not) to try to occupy Claire.  I even found a Tickle Me Elmo that Trent had given me years ago.  We have discovered Claire LOVES Elmo!  She has an Elmo book and goes for that one each time.  She opens the pages and makes a noise like she wants you to read that page.  It's great! 

Back to the storm - Trent went out before lunch to observe damage and reported by then there was a lot.  Our roadside stand was totally blown away.  The front porch had been ripped off of his granddaddy's house.  The shelter at his mom's was destroyed.  Luckily, we had minimal damage at our homes though.  And we are all safe.  I think I nearly had several anxiety attacks during the night but I came out ok!

We finally got our generator running yesterday so it was nice to have fans running in our extremely hot oven house.  As of now, we still don't have power.  We are praying soon, but the reports are that it could be Thursday until we get it back. 

We have heard from family on the Outer Banks that they are ok and we are very thankful for that.  And all of our family and friends around here are ok.  Houses can be replaced; people can't. 

My dad went down to my grandparents' river house in Pamlico County today and it's totalled.  It WAS on stilts but looks like they were washed out from under the house and it just fell to the ground and fell apart.  I just cried. 

We took lots of pictures and a few videos of our damage and of us entertaining Claire during the long hours of the storm and the aftermath.

Fuzz was hanging tight with Claire. 

Someone was excited that Elmo came to visit!

Checking out the wind outside.

I resorted to the washcloth on the head game after several hours. 

Spunky and Claire

We then resorted to strolling around the house.  And then stopped to watch a little Elmo on the portable car DVD player on the coffee table. 

Our screened porch after the storm.

Big limbs down in our yard

Trent's corn demolished

The corn was "shredded" looking. 

Trent's granddaddy's house

Front of the house

Inside of Granddaddy's house

Where our roadside stand USED to be

Where the roadside stand is now

Shelter at Antia's house

We had to break out after a day stuck at home and visited Granny and Big Daddy's house.

Claire supervised the yard cleanup at Granny and Big Daddy's from her stroller.  She LOVED watching Big Daddy on the lawn mower!

More damage on Trent's farm shop

Inside of the shop

water damage at Grandma Neat Neat's

YAY!  The generator works and we have FANS!!!!

My grandparent's river house.  It used to be on stilts but I guess the water washed them out from under it. 

river house

So you can see it was pretty bad around here this weekend.  I am glad it's over.  But there are more storms out there with one on the same track as Irene.  Thanks for the prayers for us!  Continue the prayers for those who lost their homes or had lots of damage. 

On a good note - Claire has 4 teeth now!  And she's almost crawling!  She's acting like she wants more than baby food, but can't get used to the textures yet. 

Love,

The Scott Family