This is Not an Adventure

We are still without power and likely to be this way for some time. Our house is on the eastern side of the ridge in our town, and appears to have caught the brunt of the wind in our area. The eye of Sandy passed south of us, so the north side of the hurricane, which has less rain but stronger winds, hit us and our ridge sheltered the towns on the other side. They have some trees down and no power, but nothing like up here.

The trees all fell towards the west, so the north-south streets have multiple trees on them, some very very large. Power lines are down all over the place, and we've found one spot where a high voltage line came down and melted a crater into the asphalt - we are lucky no houses burned here. But there are power poles snapped and we've yet to see even a city crew even starting to clear roads. Power will be at least a week, maybe more.

We are surviving off an inverter John hooked to his car battery. It gives us enough for the gas appliances that have electronic ignition (water heater, stove, fireplace) and to charge our phones. We did have the router on it and internet - until someone cut our fiber yesterday. It was hanging kind of low across the street and I guess they thought it was a hazard to large trucks.

I was doing pretty well until we lost Internet yesterday and John couldn't get the water heater to light this morning. We used the last of the water for short showers, but it's going to be a long wait if we don't have hot water.