Two natural disasters in 5 days?

[Gale Seddon]

I live in Mineral, VA, home of the earthquake of 8/23. That was "interesting." Don't think I'll ever forget that roaring rumbling sound. Lots of things falling off walls and out of cupboards, etc. Aftershocks have been just as frightening and we even had two 2.2's yesterday. We were very lucky that no serious damage occurred to our old house -- at least that we know of at this point. Others had significant damage and had to leave their homes. Chimneys all over seemed most likely to crumble. The schools that opened on 8/15 are now closed until after Labor Day. There are major concerns with the construction of some of them.

Then we had Irene blow through to the east of us, starting Saturday around Noon. I'd spent some time prepping for this and fortunately we only had <2" of rain and gusty winds. No visible damage, but I haven't walked all the fences yet. It's truly amazing that we didn't lose power. As you well know, many other areas and many thousands of people had/have major problems due to this storm. I hope all of you and your families are well and were not closely affected by either of these disasters.

The hardest part was not having a telephone from 8/7-8/14, thanks to lightning, then no Internet from 8/14 until yesterday. Due to the Verizon strike, they sent a supervisor (from Texas!!!) to repair the phone and in the process, he severed the DSL line. (Thank you, Verizon!) All is fixed now and I am finally able to read what's been going on in the world. It has been a long month.

 

[melking]

Glad you all are okay.

 

[TexasBred]

Did that guy from Texas speak any English? :lol2:

 

[hillsdown]

Thats alot to have on your plate Gale . I hope you are all OK and can recover from the damage done.

 

[ALACOWMAN]

Did that guy from Texas speak any English? :lol2:

he probably did since he was a supervisor ,,, he's the one that makes a dollar more an hour ....mostly to interpret
:cowboy:

 

[VanC]

Glad everything wasn't a total loss for you, Gale. Sounds like you're due for a run of good luck.

 

[chrisy]

sorry you have had such a horrid month, glad you are OK. Now the only way is up and good luck must be around the corner for you. Take care...

Chris.

 

[JSCATTLE]

At least he was from Texas and not India.

 

[CKC1586]

At least he was from Texas and not India.

:clap: :nod: :clap:

 

[Gale Seddon]

At least he was from Texas and not India.

:clap: :nod: :clap:

You've got that right!

I think he might have snipped the DSL line on purpose since my husband was helping, errrr ummmmm, I mean watching. Oh, Verizon subtracted only $30 from the $230 monthly bill for the lost service--(no phone service for 7 days, no DSL for 17 days)--but only because we called about the bill.

 

[pdfangus]

I am about 20 miles east of Mineral in Hanover county.
so I share your pain....

earthquake did little damage to us but still having aftershocks this morning.
I hurried home when I discovered where the epeicenter was expecting my old house to be a pile of rubble. But it is loose enough that it just swayed with the ground. no serious damage found yet.
Big aftershock the night of the quake at about 8:00 pm nearly thru me out of the bathtub. Hoping that all these shocks along with the couple of smaller quakes in the last couple years are not signs of something bigger coming.

Irene was a PITA.

couple of farmers mid county lost several hundred acres of corn....all knocked down falt by winds.

one guy in eastern end of county lost half his machinery when trees fell on his sheds and he has a tree thru the middle of his house.

folks east of Hanover courthouse still don't have power and this is day 6 and no end in sight.

My boss lives in new kent and they don't know when they will have power. half the roads still closed with trees down and all the power lines down. talking about postponing school opening.

for some reason we are fighting snakes....had a baby copperhead on the poorch last night when the wife let the dogs out. one dog stepped on it but did not get bit. wife killed mama or papa last week right in front of porch.

 

[Gale Seddon]

Jim, hi there. It has been quite a while since I've seen or talked to you.

Sounds like you got the bad end of Irene, as did most people east of us. I know we were very lucky in both cases. But the aftershocks still make me nervous. Lots of toppled chimneys in Mineral.

I wonder if the snake problem is from all the rain? (That would be up there as natural disaster #3 for me.)

Hope all is otherwise going well for you in Beaverdam!