It's around 1:30 a.m. and I'm suddenly awakened by very sharp and rapid lightening. The thunder is a very low, growling roar. All of a sudden there's one loud clap of thunder then returns to the previous.
At 2:05 a.m. Grau returns home from work to discover our power is out. Then he proceeds to tell me about the weather.
About 5:40 my phone starts ringing off the hook. "This is work with a courtesy call. Are you able to get out of your garage?" I say, "No problem, considering I don't have a garage" after stumbling in the pitch darkness of my home to get to my phone, hurting myself. "Well, you be really careful coming in this morning. If we don't see you by 6:30 a.m. we're sending out a search party. Rockford's had well over 8 inches of rain so far." I say, "This is a good theory and all, but if it's that bad out who are you going to be sending out my way!?!" "Not to mention the fact there's a total of 6 nursing staff employees on duty on 3rd shift, two nurses and 4 aides." Who would they spare and who'd be crazy enough to do such a thing!?! Nah, I'd be floating along my merry little way, down the road, in my minivan. Thanks for the setiment but I tend think they were just calling to make sure that I was awake and coming in to relieve them.
Right before I head out the door, Grau confirms the conditions in Rockford and tells me to be really careful driving to work. I know he's just looking out for me but...
Honestly, I didn't take too much stock in the warnings because Rockford was hit hard and bad and usually we don't get anything as near as severe as they do. That, and I really didn't want to scare myself more while concentrating on driving. Thank goodness I was correct in my assumptions. I took it slower than usual in case of flooding, but the road was just wet and not really slick.
The rainfall out here barely left standing water in the ditches although we took quite a pounding ourselves. I guess we're lacking in rainfall because it was soaking into the ground pretty well. I've been told at least one family lost their house and both of their vehicles to flooding in Rockford. There were also reports of vehicles floating down the roadways due to the flooding. And now they're concerned that the dam at Aldeen Park in Rockford won't hold much longer and will flood the area. Yeah, Rockford got hit much harder I'd say.
Anyways, I had to turn my bright lights on to pull into the parking lot at work. There are barricades all over the place due to massive road construction, the barricades nearly block off the driveway to my work, and both sides of the road have huge drop offs that have all been dug out that are a tad rough to hit. Then I quickly realize it's darker than pitch out there, the lights in the parking lot aren't on and I can hear the backup generators running outside.
Shit.....we have no power in a nursing home. The backup generator doesn't put any lights on in the rooms, the dining room, the kitchen (but the oven works), very few lights work in the hallways, few work at the nurses station, no hot water because the water heaters are electric, there's no a/c, the stench permeating throughout the building is enough to gag a maggot, and we can't flush the toilets due to lowered water pressure. Yeah, and the previous shift helped out quite well: "We made sure all the windows and curtains were shut to try and keep it cool." Well, us day walkers couldn't handle the stench anymore and cranked open the windows. We did get some airflow at least and we didn't toss our cookies. But it sure was muggy in there and we're all cooling ourselves with cold washcloths throughout the morning.
The power had gone out about 2 a.m. and we were without power until 9 a.m. 7 hours, well after the sun has risen and things are starting heat up outside. Hot and humid, floors are sticky and slippery and the place stinks to high heaven without proper air circulation. I had to dress folks in the dark, wash them with lukewarm water, I couldn't see to shave the men folk and hoped the were dressed, clean, and upright in one piece. Everything turned out o.k. so maybe I do my best work in the dark, lol!
A most beautiful start to my day......
On the up side, the dietary manager pulled out some 12 packs of pop from our pop machine supply for all of us (since we couldn't get any out of the machine) and brought everyone in creme filled long johns for us all to feast on this morning. Yum...
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