If I'm being completely honest, I'm not a people person. I'm an introvert. I can only handle so much human interaction at a time before I need to recharge my mental battery, especially with people I don't know or who aren't part of my inner circle. That's just the way it is. And that's how I live — in a house that sits off the road on a rural property with plants, animals and my elderly father. It allows me to largely control how much interaction I have to deal with.
Or it does most of the time. Hurricanes might be the exception.
I've been through numerous hurricanes and tropical storm events in my lifetime, and I've even seen some pretty nasty damage from them, but I've never actually had to deal with it myself. I either lived in rental houses as an adult or lived with my parents when I was younger. In other words, if there was something to handle in the aftermath, someone else dealt with it. Now, it's just me.
When I went to bed on Friday night, I was tired. I'd had a long and stressful week and was ready to put it all behind me and maybe actually catch up on sleep. I knew Hurricane Isaias was coming through, but it didn't sound like it'd be a problem in my area — just a lot of rain and wind. Nothing I haven't seen before.
But sometime around 5 a.m., the power went out. That didn't surprise me. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, but then my dad texted me. "Major issues," he said, because this is how he texts. "Major issues" could be anything from a tree fell on the house to he can't find the cookies I bought him. He's been sleeping in the recliner in the living room, so I got up and went in there to see what was going on. He told me to look outside, as he'd heard a very loud crash before the power went out. All I could think was that I'd forgotten to move my car the night before (I park under a big tree and try to move it when there is bad weather).
So, I went out into the garage, and even though it was pitch black dark, pouring rain, and windy as heck, I could see that my car was fine. As I moved closer to the garage door, I could see something metal on the ground beside it and then I noticed that the power lines were down on top of it, but it didn't appear damaged. I finally spotted some siding missing from the wall above my garage where the lines had been connected, but I was still groggy and couldn't quite figure out what happened. I couldn't see that anything had fallen anywhere around the car or on the lines, even up my long driveway as far as I could see in the dark. It just didn't make sense.
I came back in and told my dad. He went back to sleep. I was sitting on the sofa when I suddenly heard a bunch of loud popping noises outside. I wondered briefly if the power company had already shown up, so I went back to the garage to check. I didn't see any trucks, but I could hear things falling. My house backs up to the woods, and there's a little strip of huge pine and oak trees between my driveway and my next-door neighbor's (who happens to be my cousin) property. It was all coming from that area. I was finally able to make out some big limbs falling. It was incredibly eerie because I still couldn't really see what exactly was happening.
Around 7:15, I finally had enough daylight to go look outside, and I saw a tree across my driveway up near the road, so I assumed that was what jerked the lines out of the house. A little while later, my cousin texted me pictures of the view from his side, and it looked a bit more ominous. Around this time Georgia Power drove up, and I asked my cousin what they said. I can't repeat his response here without using an awful lot of asterisks, so use your imaginations.
I went back and sat on the sofa, where I fell asleep and woke up half an hour later to someone pounding on my door. Georgia Power. I rushed out there in my pajamas, no shoes, no bra, unkempt, and half asleep and tried to act like a functional adult while this beautiful lineman explained to me that they're going to clean some of this up for me, but they can't turn my power on until I've hired an electrician and that, ideally, I need to do so ASAP.
As he said this, more Georgia Power vehicles were pulling up to my property. More workers were getting out with chainsaws, and I suddenly had a better idea of what was going on. This wasn't just a tree across the driveway... every tree in that wooded area between mine and my cousin's house was down on the ground, jutting out in every which direction. It had been like a domino effect. We even wondered if there'd been some kind of small spin-up. Soon, even Georgia Power people in regular clothes had shown up to observe what was happening. It felt like half of the company was in my yard. I sort of expected to see the local news camera set up. It was wild.
I didn't know the first thing about hiring an electrician. I wasn't sure how much it would cost, and my accessible cash was a bit limited because I'd gone the whole last week without a phone (dropped it in the pool, then Apple locked me out of my account) and couldn't get into any of my banking apps.
I tend to be very independent, but I felt like I'd finally met my match in this Hurricane Isaias. Dealing with all of this on my own was one thing, but for the last six months, as my father's health has declined, I've been dealing with everything on my own — managing two sizeable properties, managing two houses, working, handling two sets of finances, keeping my dad fed and cared for, trying to get his health insurance straightened out, taking care of all of my animals, cleaning out all of my mom's and grandparents' belongings and selling all of our property, which we are currently doing, and even more that I won't list here. It's a lot for one person. It's a lot for five people.
So, I gave up and did something I hate doing more than anything: I asked for help. I texted my aunt. I told her I needed an electrician and didn't know what to do. I wasn't even thinking about the fact that her son — my cousin — is an electrician. She told me she'd get in touch with him and handle it. She also told me she was running to the store and asked if I needed anything. I had a Diet Coke order that was supposed to be delivered that morning, but, of course, with all the trees down and blocking the road, the driver couldn't get it here, my car was blocked in, and my head was pounding, partially due to the lack of caffeine, so I asked if she could possibly grab me some.
Shortly after, my uncle showed up and started looking at the damage to see what he could prepare for my electrician cousin, and then my aunt called and said she had the Diet Coke but couldn't get to me, so I walked up to the road to meet her. I swear there were 20-30 Georgia Power employees out there at this point, plus my cousin next door and his boyfriend were helping them haul logs to the chipper.
As I was intercepting the Diet Coke from my aunt, my weird neighbor Johnny came walking up and brought his "buddy" Martin along. I'd never met Martin, but it reminded me of a scene from the old Newhart show, "Hi, I'm Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother Darryl." He began asking me how my mom was — my mom who died a few years ago.
Eventually, my cousin showed up, and he brought his eight-year-old with him. While my cousin and uncle worked, the little boy asked me 8,000 oddly specific questions about my life. I think he'll make a fine journalist one day. I'm pretty sure even more lookie-loos and Georgia Power employees showed up in the midst of all this. My quiet people-free sanctuary had turned into a town square.
Later that evening, once everyone had left, I finally walked up the driveway to get an idea of what the actual damage was. Georgia Power had cleared the road, driveway, and poles, but there is still a HUGE mess to clean up. One more thing to add to my never-ending to-do list. I'll admit that I was not in a good place. I was angry. I was sad. I was overwhelmed. I picked up a small limb and threw it as far as I could into the woods. Then another and another. It was good stress relief.
But as I was tossing these limbs into the woods — while I'm sure Johnny and Martin and probably a stray Georgia Power employee who was left behind were somewhere watching me in the distance, wondering if I'd finally lost it — I realized something. Yes, life may be extremely hard right now, and the last thing I needed was a hurricane to uproot half the trees on my property, but I'm also extremely lucky.
The trees didn't fall on my car or my house. They didn't hurt me or anyone in my family who lives nearby. My aunt and uncle were kind enough to jump into action when I just couldn't handle one more thing, and my cousin was nice enough to take his day off and come help me out and probably save me a lot of money. The Georgia Power guys I dealt with personally were very nice and even did a few things that were above and beyond what they had to do. My cousin's little boy kept me entertained and upright when I really just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. Even Johnny actually helped me, figuring out a temporary setup for my mailbox.
Suddenly I stopped throwing limbs around like a madwoman and thanked God for the people who helped me out that day. It was a reminder that even the most introverted, independent woman in Georgia sometimes needs a village.
