OT Ready for Isabel?

[~Vicki ~]

We are getting ready for the worst storm to hit since Floyd. All our
precious things are being gathered up like family pictures and other
odds and ends to be taken to my folks home. My parents have a two story
home and I hope will do better than here in our rancher. We will pack
up the animals (except my fish which makes me sad) and go stay with our
friends in Richmond if it turns out that Isabel heads our way. I will
let everyone know how things turn out, one way or the other.

Vicki in Hampton Roads, Virginia

[RedForeman ©®]

Good luck Vicki, I'll be praying for all family and friends on the eastern
shores....

Idea -
Build a 2z4 box, with plywood on all 4 sides and top...
I've heard of ppl putting their tanks in wood boxes, sealed up and left for
several days.... knowing a hurricane was coming... they even put the tanks
in the bathrooms and in the tubs to chance the house taking off... someone
said, it can take the house, but never takes the plumbing.... never had to
deal with it myself, but can only imagine.... we deal with tornados 6-10
times a year here in Tornado Alley from the Valley....




"~Vicki ~" > wrote in message
...
> We are getting ready for the worst storm to hit since Floyd. All our
> precious things are being gathered up like family pictures and other
> odds and ends to be taken to my folks home. My parents have a two story
> home and I hope will do better than here in our rancher. We will pack
> up the animals (except my fish which makes me sad) and go stay with our
> friends in Richmond if it turns out that Isabel heads our way. I will
> let everyone know how things turn out, one way or the other.
>
> Vicki in Hampton Roads, Virginia
>

[~Vicki ~]

Thank you both for your kind words. I know this post has nothing to do
with aquaria in general, but I do consider y'all friends in here that
share my passion for keeping healthy fish.

As anyone who lives on the coast knows, Hurricanes in the summer and
nor-easters in the winter are a way of life. We get a couple of them a
year and with the exception of a little debris in the yards not much
damage. Floyd in 99 was a mess and there are places here that are still
dealing with it, but Isabel makes Floyd look like a spring shower in
comparison.

The national weather service has it confirmed that it will hit the outer
banks in NC and pass right over us (hampton roads is only a few miles
away from the outer banks and with all the water it will not loose
strength till it gets inland) and unless God helps us out we will get
slammed. The Navy will be sending the atlantic fleet out to sea
tomorrow so the ships will be safe and Langely AFB is sending the planes
away too. I have not heard much on the other military bases in the
area, but I am sure they will be doing pretty much the same things.

My family lives in the City of Hampton along with my parents (diff homes
tho) and My brother lives about 5 miles away in the City of Newport
News. We all live about 5 ft above sea level and the storm surge will
be around 18ft. But that is not what will damage our home the most but
the 150mph wind will. After listening to what survivors of Andrew had
to say I am convinced that it will take a miracle to save our home. In
Homestead the houses were made of masonry and the wind sucked the
boarded up windows out of the homes first, then sucked all the interior
out, then blew off the roofing shingles, and then the roof. Our homes
here are made of sticks (2X4's) and are not as strong as the ones were
in Homestead.

Now we have insurance but it will never be the same. I can't bring
everything with me. We just got a new dinning room suit two weeks ago,
well it was not exactly new but the set my parents bought 40 years ago.
It spent a year on lay-a-way back then and if they had not bought a new
one, we would not have it. How do you replace all the christmas dinners
that table saw? And then there are all the antiques that have been
passed down for the last 200 years. How do you put a price tag on that?

Sorry for all the rambling but I am upset about the probability of
loosing every thing I have worked so hard for all my life.

Vicki

[NetMax]

"~Vicki ~" > wrote in message
...
> Thank you both for your kind words. I know this post has nothing to do
> with aquaria in general, but I do consider y'all friends in here that
> share my passion for keeping healthy fish.
<snip>
> Sorry for all the rambling but I am upset about the probability of
> loosing every thing I have worked so hard for all my life.
>
> Vicki

FWIW, I think the newsgroup is about the fishkeepers as well as
fishkeeping, so please let us know how you make out. Wishing you get
through it well, and I'll be watching the news.

NetMax

[Donald Kerns]

~Vicki ~ wrote:

> Thank you both for your kind words. I know this post has nothing to
> do with aquaria in general, but I do consider y'all friends in here
> that share my passion for keeping healthy fish.
>
> Sorry for all the rambling but I am upset about the probability of
> loosing every thing I have worked so hard for all my life.

You are in our prayers.

Peace be with you Vicki,

-Donald (& Nicki)
--
My friend, when I asked you to serve Me and you accepted,
I told you that your task was to push against the rock with
all of your strength, which you have done.
Never once did I mention to you that I expected you to move it.

[Wendy Puckett]

We'll be watchng with you, Vicki. Here in Raleigh everyone is sort of
holding their breath waiting to see what happens once Isabel hits the
warm water again. Each time the weather channel reports that she's lost
wind speed there's a small cheer around the office.

We'll be praying with you and let us know how it goes.

Wendy and Kevin

[~Vicki ~]

Thank you everyone, I am truly touched! Looks like it will not be to
bad for us here now that it has weakened some. We expect to loose power
so this may be my last post till it is over. Schools are only open for
a half day tomorrow and then we wait.
Lets keep our fingers crossed,
Vicki

[Donald Kerns]

~Vicki ~ wrote:

> We are getting ready for the worst storm to hit since Floyd. \

To those in NC, VA, WV, MD, DC, NJ, SC and PA,

Stout hearts and God bless,

-Donald
--
"When you've lost your ability to laugh, you've lost your ability to
think straight." -To Inherit the Wind

[Wendy Puckett]

With all the footage now coming out of Ocracoke, I have no doubt she and
her family could all use our prayers. Here in Raleigh we got some wind
but that was about it.

Sending thoughts and prayers,
Wendy

Brian wrote:
> In article >,
> Donald Kerns > wrote:
>
>
>>~Vicki ~ wrote:
>>
>>
>>>We are getting ready for the worst storm to hit since Floyd. \
>>
>>To those in NC, VA, WV, MD, DC, NJ, SC and PA,
>>
>>Stout hearts and God bless,
>>
>>-Donald
>
>
> Well, I'm waiting for Vicki to report back in, but life is very good,
> for me anyway, in Northern VA. Was without power for at least 12 hours -
> it came back on while I was at work today (the Federal workers all got
> yesterday & today off). Since my bad experience with a power outage some
> years ago, this time I disconnected my canister filter and left it sit
> with the top off, so the water inside was exposed to air (keep the water
> alive). Tree went down outside my apartment, but it blew the other
> direction. On my way home from work, I saw a caravan of trucks coming up
> from the Georgia electric utility to help get the lights back on. There
> are still over a half-million folks without electricity in Metro DC,
> plus a similar number in the Hampton Roads area, and another few hundred
> thousand in Richmond. Water in the Potomac River in DC was up over 12
> feet, with storm surge, big waves, and high tide. I've no doubt Vicki
> can use our best wishes, at a minimum. She has mine.
>
> B
>

[~Vicki ~]

I made it through the storm in one piece. We finally got our power back
last nite and I would have posted then, but I had a big e-mail to send
out to my family out of state to let them know we had pulled through.

It looks like a war zone here. Every other house lost at least one tree
here. They either broke in half like a twig or fell over roots and all
like our 30 - 40 year old pine. Power lines were all over the place and
the flooding was very bad in some places. We have friends that still
have 3 ft of water in their homes.

We lost our power around noon on Thursday and a short time later I
heard the first of what sounded like gun shots, but was tree branches or
whole trees breaking off in the wind. At that time my husband, daughter
and myself decided to sit on the back covered porch so that if one of
our three silver maples fell over on the house they would not hit us or
trap us in the house. We sat out there till it got to dark to see our
skyline change all around us. First our tree fell then the neighbors
and so on. We listened to the radio during this whole time and were
kept up to date through callers. Our street flooded badly down and up
from our home but we didn't flood here. The fire department had to
evacuate and 911 went down, not that they could have gotten to us with
all the power lines and trees in the way. Phone lines went down too and
I could not get a hold of my mom to check on her, my son or dad. It was
the longest day of my life and I know it was after 1am before we fell
asleep.

Friday morning dawned like there had not even been a storm and we were
able to take a look around. Trees were own all over the place, some had
missed there homes but many others did not. We jumped in our truck
which my husband had parked across the street where there were no trees
to fall on it and went to check on my mom. They were lucky and did not
loose a tree, but their neighbors were not so lucky. Then we drove home
to begin the process of cleaning up our yard and helping out our
neighbors. We put in 8 hours and got our yard back in order, including
cutting up our pine and halling the brush to the street. Not counting
our pine tree we had enough brush to make a new tree from what fell off
our remaining 5 silver maples. Had my husband not pruned them back 2
months ago it would have been a lot worse.

Looking back I have to admit that it could have been a lot worse all
over if we had not been so well prepared. We had over 20g of bottled
water and plenty of other drinks for some variety. We still had hot
water because our water tank is gas powered instead of electric, but
besides bathing the water was contaminated so we could not drink it. We
did not have a lot of perishable foods to go bad and being avid campers
we were able to cook on our camp stove. But I will be happy if I never
have to eat ravioli again.

Vicki in Hampton Roads

[RedForeman ©®]

Good to know all is well.... I've heard of some horror stories coming out of
Virginia, so you and others were in my thoughts....




"~Vicki ~" > wrote in message
...
> I made it through the storm in one piece. We finally got our power back
> last nite and I would have posted then, but I had a big e-mail to send
> out to my family out of state to let them know we had pulled through.
>
> It looks like a war zone here. Every other house lost at least one tree
> here. They either broke in half like a twig or fell over roots and all
> like our 30 - 40 year old pine. Power lines were all over the place and
> the flooding was very bad in some places. We have friends that still
> have 3 ft of water in their homes.
>
> We lost our power around noon on Thursday and a short time later I
> heard the first of what sounded like gun shots, but was tree branches or
> whole trees breaking off in the wind. At that time my husband, daughter
> and myself decided to sit on the back covered porch so that if one of
> our three silver maples fell over on the house they would not hit us or
> trap us in the house. We sat out there till it got to dark to see our
> skyline change all around us. First our tree fell then the neighbors
> and so on. We listened to the radio during this whole time and were
> kept up to date through callers. Our street flooded badly down and up
> from our home but we didn't flood here. The fire department had to
> evacuate and 911 went down, not that they could have gotten to us with
> all the power lines and trees in the way. Phone lines went down too and
> I could not get a hold of my mom to check on her, my son or dad. It was
> the longest day of my life and I know it was after 1am before we fell
> asleep.
>
> Friday morning dawned like there had not even been a storm and we were
> able to take a look around. Trees were own all over the place, some had
> missed there homes but many others did not. We jumped in our truck
> which my husband had parked across the street where there were no trees
> to fall on it and went to check on my mom. They were lucky and did not
> loose a tree, but their neighbors were not so lucky. Then we drove home
> to begin the process of cleaning up our yard and helping out our
> neighbors. We put in 8 hours and got our yard back in order, including
> cutting up our pine and halling the brush to the street. Not counting
> our pine tree we had enough brush to make a new tree from what fell off
> our remaining 5 silver maples. Had my husband not pruned them back 2
> months ago it would have been a lot worse.
>
> Looking back I have to admit that it could have been a lot worse all
> over if we had not been so well prepared. We had over 20g of bottled
> water and plenty of other drinks for some variety. We still had hot
> water because our water tank is gas powered instead of electric, but
> besides bathing the water was contaminated so we could not drink it. We
> did not have a lot of perishable foods to go bad and being avid campers
> we were able to cook on our camp stove. But I will be happy if I never
> have to eat ravioli again.
>
> Vicki in Hampton Roads
>

[~Vicki ~]

P.S. here. Only lost one fish from one of five tanks. Floyd in 99 left
us in the dark for only a few hours so I didn't pick up a battery
powered air stone before the storm hit, and that is a mistake I can say
I will never make again. Monday nite we found a store which had fishing
gear and I bought two bait bubblers which work on battery power. They
made a lot of noise but saved my fish. The one I lost was my star fish
in my 55g marine tank named "Patrick" but the rest of my critters all
tho stressed, pulled through once I added the air stone.

Vicki

[Toni]

"~Vicki ~" > wrote in message
news:5194-3F71D517-6@storefull-
> Looking back I have to admit that it could have been a lot worse all
> over if we had not been so well prepared. We had over 20g of bottled
> water and plenty of other drinks for some variety. We still had hot
> water because our water tank is gas powered instead of electric, but
> besides bathing the water was contaminated so we could not drink it. We
> did not have a lot of perishable foods to go bad and being avid campers
> we were able to cook on our camp stove. But I will be happy if I never
> have to eat ravioli again.


I know what it's like to go outside in the morning to see "what's left".
Thankfully your family was spared- I guess the ravioli paid off.
Personally I bank on peanut butter.
<g>
Glad to see you back- we were about ready to send out a scout troup.

--
Toni
http://www.cearbhaill.com/aquarium.htm

[NetMax]

"~Vicki ~" > wrote in message
...
> I made it through the storm in one piece.
<snip>

Thanks for letting us know. Welcome back

NetMax

> Vicki in Hampton Roads
>

[Wendy]

We're sure glad to see you back. The trucks are being loaded this week
in Raleigh to be sent out your way. We're sending our prayers for the
ones that were less fortunate along with the supplies. Hope things
continue to get better for everyone quickly.

[Tedd]

"~Vicki ~" > wrote in message
...

> I made it through the storm in one piece.

thats what counts, welcome back vicki.

:-)