This past weekend (Friday, August 26-Sunday, August 28, 2011) Hurricane Irene hit the eastern North Carolina coast pretty hard. I just happened to be one the thousands of people Hurricane Irene impacted. We live close to the coast of North Carolina (about an hour or so away from Atlantic Beach) but far enough away that we don't really get hit hard during small tropical storms and hurricanes. On Friday, Irene started to make landfall. During the first few hours of the hurricane, I really thought it was going to be like Hurricane Earl. Hurricane Earl hit eastern North Carolina in 2010 and most of us thought it was a joke. The most we got from the storm was a little rain and some wind. So for the first few hours of Irene, I thought all we were going to get was some rain and some wind. Little did I know, it was going to turn into something more.
Around 2 a.m. on Saturday, I was able to stay awake and hear her start to really make her way onto shore. When I was studying my Bible right before I went to bed, the winds began to pick up and hit the side of the house. Right when I was shutting off my lights and snuggling into my bed, the rain started falling harder. I happen to have a small air purifier fan in my room which blocks out most of the noises in my house (like our cat, Fat Cat, running around and slamming into doors and walls, our t.v. creaking from being on most of the day, etc.) but when the rain began to pick up, it started to drown out the air purifier.
As soon as I was able to fall asleep, I was woken back up two hours later. My air purifier was shut off, my ceiling fan had stopped, and my sister was walking down the hall. As soon as I got my bearings, I realized the power was out. Once I got out of the bed, I stayed up until the sun rose behind the clouds at around 6 or 7 a.m. At that point, I was extremely tired after having just 2 hours of sleep that night and fell asleep on my bed for about a few hours.
When I woke up, my dad had turned on our generator (thank God we had that! I don't know what we would do without it!) and we were running a refrigerator, a freezer, my grandfather's refrigerator, and some cell phone chargers. My dad then proceeded to make a breakfast of eggs and bacon on the grill and my mom, sister, and I proceeded to watch Irene make her mark. Once breakfast was done, my mom and I pulled some beach chairs out from the garage, sat them on our back porch, and ate one of the best breakfasts I've had in my entire life while we watched Irene. Trees were whipping back and forth from the strong winds and the rain was pelting the ground. A few times, I pulled out the video camera to record the impact Irene was making. A few small tree limbs landed on our porch as we sat there. In the background, we could hear the huge tree limbs snapping and landing in the woods.
Around 1, I decided to take a nap since I still haven't really gotten a lot of sleep. A few hours later, I heard my grandfather come over and say, "You guys need to come here." Of course, we all jumped up and ran over to his house. He pointed to his window and I gasped when I looked out of it. A huge 100 year old oak tree from my neighbor's yard fell on our deck, pool, and slide crushing it completely. The tree was so high up that it passed the roof of my house and it was so big that I couldn't get it all in one picture. Thankfully, it came close to hitting our shed and my grandfather's house but it never touched anything major. There was no physical damage besides the pool and deck, but I know my grandfather was spooked for a while afterwards since he watched the tree fall. After the eye of the storm had passed, we got a phone call from my youth pastor who decided to venture out a little bit. Of course, we were still in the middle of the storm. But my youth pastor told us that our church had a tree fall on our fellowship hall. Since we live two minutes away, my father and I rushed over there. The hurricane had knocked a tall tree into the roof of the church, missing the windows and the ac. Everything was pretty much safe execpt for a few holes in the roof. My father went on the roof and removed a few tree branches that made about four holes in the roof. One of the holes either had the tree limb stuck too far in it or had too much water damage and collapsed part of the roof on the inside. Insulation fell on the wet floor along with the popcorn ceiling. Every one was okay and the men made a make-shift cover-up on the roof while us women cleaned up the insulation and put buckets under the leaks. I took enough pictures for the insurance company once our secretary was ready to file a claim. As far as I know, they had church on Sunday for anyone who was able to come.
That night, I slept in my bedroom with my bedroom window opened. Luckily Irene had left once we were trying to sleep, and we were able to have a small breeze come through our window. At one point in the night, I was able to look out and see the sky cleared on one side with all the stars shining through and on the other side I could see the last of the clouds make their way out of my neighborhood.
The next morning, I woke up to our generator being broken. Even though it was 8 in the morning, the heat had already settled in for the day. My grandfather needed help with my grandmother (since hospice wasn't able to come in that day). Since my family went to go fix the generator, I was the only person able to help him. I'll save you the details and just tell you it's something I'll never forget. I really got a look at what it's like being a nurse!
Later on that day, my family went out to begin clean up while I stayed inside and tried to finish my homework. I was only able to go to school for a half a day (we went back on Thursday) and I already had a load of homework to do. After two hours of algebra 2 honors and chemistry homework, I walked outside to help. At that point, my family was overheated and we decided to settle in the house for a while. Dad cooked hamburgers on the grill and we went out to go look for a piece for our generator. During that time, we went to the local Lowe's and everything was gone. People were placing chainsaws and tarps in the middle of the main asiles since they were in such great demand. Water bottles were in abundace and every power tool for the yard was scraped clean off the shelves. I didn't even check the flashlights! Lowe's didn't have anymore generators, which was in high demand because of how many people that had power outages. We weren't able to find the piece for our generator, but a company out of Charlotte was selling generators out on the side of the road. We picked one up and ran back to Lowe's to get oil for it. My dad just happened to be the last person to get the last two cans of the oil that was left.
After we got home, we started experiencing a few flickers of our power coming back on. All of our lights would turn on then off and then about 20 minutes later, it would do it again. We figured the electricy company was turning on the power to see what else needed to be fixed. We were all laying around the living room letting the fan run over us. I was laying on the floor and I was so frusterated. I was hot and I haven't had a shower in a few days due to the cold water and the hurricane. I said a quick prayer out loud that went something like this, "Dear God, please let the people turn on our power tonight!" And I kid you not, five minutes later, around 8 p.m., our power turned on for good. My father joked that it was the quickest answer to prayer he has ever seen.
So for approximately 41 hours we didn't have power. And I know for a fact that there are still thousands of people who don't have power. I've seen pictures of an entire island cut in half because of the water. I've seen worse damage and flooding that other people have gotten. At that moment, I realized how selfish and how spoiled we, as Americans, really are. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who would love to be able to have a generator, a grill, a refrigerator, and a fan. There are thousands who want a generator, a grill, electricity, and a fan tonight. But instead of thanking God of the provision He had given me so far, I complained about the heat and about not being able to turn on the lights or charge my phone. I felt terrible after I realized how spoiled I really was. I don't ever thank God enough for the provision He has given me so far. He keeps providing the things I need, not the things I want. He knows what I need and when I need it.
After this hurricane, I realized we really didn't need the things yet. Of course, it would have been nice to have them, but it made my family grow closer because we didn't want to be alone. So tonight, I give thanks to the Lord who provides. He provides what I need and He'll continue to provide what I need. As we clean up this mess that a hurricane left us, He knows what we'll need and who's help we'll be needing. And as I really start my senior year, a year full of not a lot of sleep and a lot of homework and a lot of volleyball games, He'll provide. He'll stretch me to make me fall on Him. If anything, Hurricane Irene has taught me to never leave Him. He's the One that I need to fall on and to let Him provide for me. He knows what's best for me in every situation, even if that's complete devistation in my homestate and even in my hometown. People are going to need help now, and this is my chance to allow Him work through me to show them His love.
Of course, I'm going to post a few pictures of the damage Hurricane Irene made. It amazes me that God could create something like that to wake up His children and the surrounding areas. Of course, once there's a huge disaster like this, some people turn to God and are able to His salvation story. I pray for those people who will get that chance during the clean-up period. I pray their hearts and ears will be open to hearing it, to accepting the greatest love gift ever and will really turn their lives to God.
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| Our pool before (this is taken during the storm) |
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| ...and our pool after. Told you it was a huge tree! |
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| The tree ended up taking out another one once it fell. This is just a picture of the two trees. The one closer to the camera is the one the tree took out and the one further away is the actual tree. |
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| One of the trees that snapped in two down at our creek. Surprisingly, our creek didn't rise a lot. We were blessed not to have a lot of flooding! |
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| Just another picture of the oak tree that fell on our pool. |
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| The back and the roots of the tree that fell. |
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| Our church after the tree limb was pulled out. You can actually see the tree out the window. |
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| A huge limb we heard fall while we were watching the hurricane on the back porch. |
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| From this angle, the pool looked fine. This was the only angle we were able to see until the storm was over. Once we were able to see some of the other side (the tree covers most of the the other side), we were shocked to see how bad it was crushed. |
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| The back of our deck and the tree that fell on it. I actually had this one posted on the local news! |
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| A few tree limbs that rolled off my grandfather's house. |
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| More of the root of the tree that fell. |
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| The middle picture of the tree that fell (on the left) and the one that was taken out (on the right) when the one on the left fell |
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| One of the old businesses downtown had this on their window. Each year there was a major hurricane, the owner wrote the name of the hurricane on it and crossed it out after it had passed. |
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| The tree that fell and part of the one that was taken out. |
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| Our poor pool :( |
-hannah.
