Post Ernesto Status

As of Tuesday morning here is our status:
- I’m at work. Winnie is at home with the dogs.
- It is raining like the dickens in Richmond. (We’ve had 9+ inches plus of rain in Gloucester since Friday.)
- Our power is still out, as it is with 7000 other people (20% of the population) in our county. Gloucester seems to have been the hardest hit from this storm. Most all other power surrounding Gloucester has been restored.
- We have a tree in the line from the power pole to our house. The wire is sagging and live. I sure hope this rain doesn’t cause the tree to come the rest of the way down. I think the return (ground) to the grid was severed by the tree, so we have a hot line and no return. Bulbs blew up when we tried turning on lights on Friday, so we’ve turned off all of the breakers in the house. (Need an electrician to check things?)
- We got a generator on Saturday, so we have power to run the refrigerator, a fan, the TV, and some lights a few hours a day. We also have the BBQ grill and Coleman camp stove we can use to cook (outside). Most businesses are fully operational, so we can go out to eat as needed.
- I now recall that I have things placed poorly if that power line comes down. The grill (propane) is near the electric meter, and the generator is chained to the backyard chain-link fence (under a bit of the line).
- We have a minor roof leak. We had the roof re-shingled and repaired following Isabel three years ago, but they did a dubious re-flashing job. I had the roofer out to seal one leak a year later, and now another spot nearby is dripping through.
- Our phone line was knocked down when a neighbor lost tree limbs across the line. The line is (was?) functional, but is lying on the (now very wet) grass.
- Our oil-fired boiler is shut down due to an electric-outage failsafe. We don’t know how to relight it, so we’ll be calling the fuel oil people once we get power back on. For now we shower using the “hokey-pokey” method (you put your right arm in, you take your right arm out…) because the water is cold!
- Unrelated – we have a minor water pipe leak going on in the basement from a corroded pipe joint.
- Tropical Depression #6 has just formed in the Atlantic and is currently headed directly at us with landfall expected on about the 15th. I sure hope it turns north!