I'm back and I'm OK, guys!
I finally found the laptop I
was going to contact you guys with under the mud a few days ago. Needless to say, it doesn't work :upsidedow
I'm the only person on the street with power. When the power company came by and gave us a number we had to contact for city inspection I called it immediately and found out what I needed to do to get power, dropped everything else and concentrated on it.
I knew you'd be freaking, Sarah... you can officially hate a woman named Ms. Reynolds. She's the director of the nursing home my sister works at where I stayed for nearly a week while getting a room clean enough to stay in at home. Being across the street from the hospital they were pretty much the first place to get power back (on Thu, 9/1). The next day I walked past the office and saw the computer on. I sat down at it and went to dialup networking and added an entry for my Bellsouth backup dialup account (they provide with DSL). It connected! and the first thing I did was pull up fema.gov. I was going to let everone use my account that needed to (most of the employees there lost everything). Ms. Reynolds walked in and said, "We can't be using the computer", and proceeded to tell me that corporate monitors everything that goes on them. I asked her if they wouldn't make an exception for energencies and showed her that I had the Fema site up for everyone and she said No. I deleted the dialup networking entry I had made. Later she actually told people I must have broken the computer because she couldn't get online (in reality her LAN had not been restored yet). Oddly, the chaplain that was present during the incident called me from their branch in Biloxi MS a few days later and asked me how I had gotten connected and I walked him through the steps, so I think the bit about corporate was BS. I can't hate her too much though, she
did let me stay with my sister nearly a week, and since my sister is the home's dietary manager I ate well, plus she also let me bring home a mattress pad and some bedding so I can stay in the room I've cleared out while shoveling out the rest of the house.
When I retrieved my "safe box" it was full of storm surge water and all of the papers were ruined, but I was able to retrieve and wash off my emergency cash. That's kept me in essentials (that Walmart isn't sold out of) and after the power came on I caught a ride to go get something to cook on (there are no portable electric ranges left in town, but I got the last electric skillet Walmart had)... and a cheap computer.
My place has a rental unit attatched and it was vacant at the time of the storm (and received less structural damage than my side on the south) so I was able to pull out the flooring and furniture and dry the front room enough to use as "camp". I
had to be able to stay here becaue otherwise I was only getting an hour or so here/there to work on cleaning up. Now that the power's on it's not bad. I've got an AC working in the "camp room" and there's hot water.
Much more comfortable than a couple days ago:)
I'll be in and out on the computer. I have to finish sifting through what needs to be on my personal contents claim before the insurance claim adjuster shows up. Nobody around here had flood insurance, because it's not a flood area (and has
never seen water before) so we're waiting to see if the separate personal contents policy most of us had with our homeowners insurance will cover posessions.
I posted a thread earlier to let everyone know a little of what happened to me during and after the storm:
http://www.gofuckyourself.com/showthread.php?t=515481