My friend who lives in the complex came over to see me. She didn’t have it as bad as me. We walked over for a moment and used her landline phone. Little did I know it would be the last message I left to my family for a long time. I got their answering machine. I so wished I could have talked to them.
We decided after a bit of clean-up to go for a drive. Unbelievable destruction! Power lines, palm trees, signs all over the place. The destruction was so bad that we came home immediately.
We went to bed early with a plan for the next day to clean up some more and then go into town. Oh, I forgot to mention there were buildings down everywhere and people were looting the corner store!
Sept 16 day 2 after the storm
We woke up and went to town to see if there was anything left. I am so grateful I have a 4-wheel drive because a regular car would not get through. Mudslides from flash floods were 2 ft. Deep full of mud across the highway, power lines down, buildings just gone!
I stopped to see if my coworker was ok, as she lived alone with her fur babies. She was not home, or at least she didn’t answer. Her dogs were outside. I will check again tomorrow, I think.
We stopped at my work and windows, and water was blown all over. No one was there. Met my friend Tony and talked to people about the power. They tell us it could be up to a month to get power back! Plus, we have no cell service. Without power we can’t turn on the tap and get washing water, cooking water…..it doesn’t run without power! Things just got a lot grimmer. We talked about the food we have on hand and we realize we don’t have a lot of canned goods……I never expected this!
People are gathering a small army and I see they are going to loot Walmart, Sams club, and maybe Costco and this is only day 2. I’m so scared. The army is there. Later I hear they just opened up the doors and let people take any food items etc. that they needed……
I have 1/2 a tank of gasoline…..why oh why didn’t I get a full tank? I feel so stupid! I was so unprepared! Oh, but we have 12 gallons of clean drinking water…. which should last a little while if we are careful.
I have Costco-size baby wipes. Thank you, Kyrstin, for getting me hooked on them. This is how I will wash for the next several weeks because of no power. We have a cistern with water that we decided we can use to boil and cook with….thank goodness we have a gas stove!
All the freezer stuff is melting, the fridge is warm…..everything is going to go bad. We will have eggs and bacon tomorrow and lots of it!
I heard there is only one working cell tower in La Paz, 2 hours away. We won’t be getting power back on for at least 2 weeks and all the stores are getting looted! We are worried we might have to bug out. Oh ya, we just heard the airport is destroyed and won’t be having any flight in or out for a week or more. What are we going to do? And to top it all off with all the rain, our doors won’t shut as they are swollen, bugs and mosquitoes with the threat of dengue. Plus, we heard through the grapevine there is another storm headed our way!
My place looks like a bomb hit it, it’s super-hot and humid out and we don’t have a safe place to ride out this next storm. We are afraid that people will start looting houses and we have nothing to protect us… I can’t go to work and that means no money for me……I really feel …….tired…
Tomorrow is another day to fight the battle.
