Been a pretty rough two weeks here. My normally healthy and feisty mother-in-law got sick, and passed away after 9 days in the hospital.
That said, I had about the worst Monday in my life last week, TS Isaac came through. This is when my Mother-in-law was in the hospital, and still (apparently) mildly ill, so my wife was staying at her house (3 hours away), and I was going back and forth every few days.
Monday was my first day on my new job, managing 8 people that I just hired or transferred from other departments. I had just driven back home after staying the night at my Mother-in-law's house; I left about 5 AM and drove straight into work. Already that’s a pretty busy start, as I haven’t started a new department from scratch in about six years. Five Hour Energy drinks are a wonderful thing.
About 9am, my wife called me, stating that her mother was getting worse and I needed to come back. I pulled one of my new people (first day at work) aside and started giving him some information on tasks that the team could do. Just as I was doing this, Security came on and announced that there was a tornado warning and we had to get to the center of the building. I tried to get out of the building but security stopped me. No one could leave, we didn’t have computers or any supplies since we weren't in our office, so I’m trying to verbally train these new people while we’re on lockdown. The warning ended up getting extended to about 12:30. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be driving back up to see my wife and her mom.
So they let us out, and oh yeah by the way my car was in the shop… and due to the tornado situation there were no shuttles available to take me back to the dealership. So I ask the aforementioned new guy – "hey, I realize this is totally not appropriate on your first day, but can you drive me to the car dealer to get my car?" It’s only about 15 minutes away, and I offered to buy lunch.
So we get on the road. And it’s pouring. Pouring like crazy. We start driving, and the water starts coming out of the creeks, and the canals, and then the river… there are people abandoning their cars and wading to the side of the road, bad flooding. It took us an hour and a half to get to the dealership. I offer to buy lunch, so we stopped at the BBQ joint next door, and the owner is standing there shaking his head and saying “you people are crazy, go to your homes, we’re closing”.
It’s about 2pm at this point, so I head home. I’m trying not to exaggerate this story; this is the worst flooding I’ve seen as long as I’ve been here. There was a good section of (major cross street) that was washed out, with a boat trailer sticking vertically up from the river. Not sure where that person’s car ended up. The water was coming up over the car, there are people abandoning their vehicles left and right, and eventually I found one raised intersection where there was no water. Over an hour or so, more cars started showing up, so we got out of our cars and hung out for a while until things receded. There were two school buses and an ambulance that tried to make it into the neighborhood, but they all ended up stuck/floating.
Here's a picture from our front yard after the water started going down a little:
It took me three hours to get home. When I got home, I noticed our bird was not in her cage… I texted my stepson and he said that she had died the night before. No reason in particular, she was twenty years old, and just happened to pick this day to pass on.
I quickly packed my bags and got back on the roads. It was like a car graveyard, there were more abandoned cars than running ones. The police had most of the major intersections shut down, but eventually I made it to the Turnpike, and got up north by about 9pm.
We got a foot of rain that day, and one of my employees had to abandon their car on the roads.
That night (well about 5AM?) about five hours after we left the hospital to go sleep, they called us to get authorization to put my mother-in-law on a ventilator, and three days later she was gone.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
