Woke at day light happy to see it again.  No storms in the forecast.  Our first priority was to get to the store and hopefully find some propane and groceries.  Thursday is our regular grocery day so we were low.  Josh was kind and drove me and helped me out a lot carrying stuff and thinking through what we should buy.

We stopped by Lowes first.  We were there at 6:30 and they were open.  They had generators running their cash register and lights.  Everyone was buying water.. I asked if the water was safe and they said yes but didn’t know how long it would be until they ran dry.  We bought water and propane.  D and C batteries were gone and by the time we checked out we heard that the propane was gone too.  We actually bought too much.  I didn’t know how long one of those little tanks lasted.. just knew the one we had was empty.  Need some propane?

Next we went to Star a grocery store next door to Lowe’s.  They had generators running the cash registers and a few lights.  A bunch of perishables had already been thrown out.  They were taking cash and checks only and I didn’t have my check book with us.  We had gotten cash back at Lowe’s (didn’t realize we weren’t supposed to) so I had $60.  We tried to be wise with our money and got the bare necessities.  Our bill came out to $59.49.

Next we went to check out Publix (another grocery store down the street).  They had generators for the lights in the front of the store and cash registers.. they were taking ATM cards.  There were no lights in the back of the store.. everyone was shopping by flash light.  All the baskets were taken so Josh and I took what we could carry and when we got in line a nice lady rearranged her basket so we could share with her.  Lines were long.. but we got through pretty quickly 20-30 min.

We got home, unloaded our groceries and took a nap.  All the excitement wears you out.  That after noon we spent a couple of hours helping our elderly neighbors clean up the muck the flooded lake had left in their yard.  Josh and Joel pulled a trash can out of the lake.  I am not sure who got the builder’s port-a-potty out.

They were thankful for our help and offered to recharge our cell phone with their generator and share their freezer.  We were thankful for their generator and for the cool weather.  Josh and Joel got a little sunburned.  Josh and I got to take showers in tepid water.. but by the time Joel got one the water was ice cold.

That night Mike flew home from DC.  The air port was also with out power and they had to wheel over some stairs for them to climb down from the plane.  In side the air port was dark and of course there was no air.. felt eery.  We were glad Mike got home safe and showed him around.

Once he sat down we had a family discussion on if or not we should go camping.  We had planed to go camping at Tim Ford’s lake from Friday through Sunday for Joel’s birthday, but were unable to get them on the phone and didn’t know what kind of damage they might have.  I was a little uneasy about leaving the house in the dark and without a working alarm but the dawn to dusk curfew helped.  We went to bed that night thinking we’d just stay home. 

To be continued…