First of all, we’re pretty much back to normal here. We got power back night before last, with it being off somewhere over 30 hours. We lost water pressure some time on Saturday afternoon when we went to Little Rock. Yesterday evening, we started getting water back after 8 PM — just a trickle at first as the whole system in our area had to fill and pressurize.
Even though we live in the country, we are on a public water supply system. The system serves parts of three counties. We signed up for it when it first went in back in the 80s. We had been having problems with our well pump and the water had a lot of minerals, including iron which tended to stain things. When we went on public water, we had talked about installing a new pump to make the well available as a backup. However, I had already pulled the pump once and replaced it and every time I’ve thought about doing it again, I soon forgot about it. Since we’ve only lost water pressure once in over 20 years, it’s not been an issue.
Earlier, we discovered another problem caused by the storm. The local television stations are coming in fine over the satellite receiver. However, virtually nothing else is. I did a little trouble shooting and it looks like the dish must have moved a little bit. I’m planning to go up on the roof tomorrow morning before it gets too hot and “re-point” the dish. While I’m at it, I’ll try to get a really strong signal from both of the satellites we receive programming on. After I moved the dish up to the roof last year, the receiver seemed to be more susceptible to the signal getting dropped during storms than it used to be.
Yesterday, before we got water back, we drove into town to go to the gym to get showers after spending part of the day cutting wood and moving downed branches. We took a side trip on the way to town to take a look at some of the damage. Karen took some pictures on the way in and, then again, on the way home.
Not knowing that we would be getting water back, while we were in town we bought some more bottled water. It will be needed, though, even with water pressure back. Until the water company gets satisfactory results from samples sent to the state lab in Little Rock, people who lost water pressure are under a “boil water” order for any water used for drinking or cooking.
We stayed home today and worked on cutting and clearing. We’ll probably do the same tomorrow.
Pictures:
There really is a house behind and under this tree (not ours.)
A lot of trees went down across roads. In most instances, the trees were cleared off the roads by the public.
restarting the chainsaw to cut some more firewood
Maple firewood
day 11
