DISASTER DAY #2 - THE AFTERNOON

I cannot even believe that my son makes it into and out of the neighborhood, but I suppose the police have far more important things to do than monitor who goes in and out of The Red Zone now that the gas has been shut off to our houses and to our street.  I mull all day about getting into my house.  If I can't get in, I'll have to go buy clothes and other essentials, and that annoys me, especially since I only have limited funds with me.

I know, I know; I should be damn grateful that the only thing affecting me is that I need some skivvies and deodorant.  I am relieved that my home is still standing and does not have a fire in it like the house I used to live in two doors away.  But I am also a little pissed off when I hear people from other Red Zone neighborhoods telling tales of mandatory evacuees who didn't evacuate.

I decide to go home after work.

I grab some boxes, determined that if I have to leave, I'm going to save my belongings to the best of my ability.  I text my landlady who assures me that she and her family will not be leaving tonight.  I decide to chance it, and I head toward my neighborhood.  When I arrive, my landlord is there, waiting for his wife and kids to return.  He and his oldest son stayed last night to protect the property, and he tells me that the gas company, police, and fire department showed up at 3:00 a.m. and let themselves into his basement, but that they tried and couldn't get into my townhouse.  The landlord and son hid, though, since they weren't supposed to be there.

I decide that I, too, will stay.  This is when I notice that cars are going up and down my small street despite an open gas dig about fifty yards away.  Hmmmm, apparently we aren't worried about random sparks anymore.  Suddenly the mailman shows up on his cell phone.  "Yup, this is my last stop," he tells the person on the other end.  Cell phone?  Mail?  Traffic?  Absolutely I am staying.  It certainly must be safe.

The house is so quiet and the neighborhood is silent.  No one is around but than landlord and me.  No one is trying to get into their homes; they have all evacuated and are staying away as told.  They are not as desperate as am I, apparently.  I have a clock on the wall that is battery operated and sounds like fog horns on the hour, and when it sounds off at four o'clock, the noise scares the crap out of me.  I realize just how incredibly wound up about this whole situation I truly am.

I check my fridge and freezer, both of which are still cold enough, so I rush to the store for ice. I see the gas station is open (but the bank is not), so I throw twenty of my forty dollars into the nearly empty gas tank.  Then, I head to the store a few miles away and out of the danger zone.

Score!  There's a free wine tasting going on at the same time that I am shopping.  Things are starting to look up for me!  Plus, the store still has plenty of bags of ice.  I taste wine (but don't buy any; I  only have twenty dollars), buy ice, cheese, and D batteries for the bigger flashlight.  This sucks up most of my last twenty dollars.

As soon as I get into my car in the parking lot, my landlady texts me that the emergency crew is at the property doing inspections, and she wants to let them in to check meters.  Sure!  I'm on my way!  By the time I arrive, the crew has cleared any home they could access, which includes mine.  I don't have electricity, and I don't have gas (obviously), but I will at least be able to have flashlights going legally and not worry about being hauled out of my own home for being in The Red Zone without clearance.

 I pack up one cooler of food and one of alcohol (beer and white wine), and I get the flashlights ready for the evening.  My phone, which is almost out of life, can receive occasional random texts if I'm lucky, so I head to my daughter's house a half mile away (that has already had power restored and still has wifi) to charge up my cell and the back-up battery.  It starts to get dark, though - slightly dark where she lives with the sliver of moon in the sky and street lights, but when I leave to head home, I am unprepared for what I am about to see, or not see, as the case may be.