Things The Third One Did

On The Home Front
Water service came back on this morning around 8 — roughly 24 hours without. I've never been so happy to hear a toilet tank refilling. Fortunately, I overslept. Had I gotten out of bed on time, there still would not have been water, and I was hoping to rush to the gym in hopes of a shower before work.

Surely, we're under yet another "boil water advisory" — although the county's posted Boil Water hotline seemed indignant that I'd bothered to call them instead of the utility — we're old hats at the whole game now, though.

In the "don't tempt fate" category, we did actually lose power, for less than a minute, but immediately after we put a frozen pizza in the oven to cook lunch.


Near the Front
The stoplight that lets us exit our neighborhood onto a busy Federal highway is gone. The cables are still there, and the lights facing the highway are there (no power, not even blinking, but they're there), but the two actual signals for our street are MIA. Realization last night: all the admonishments in the world that completely non-functioning stoplights should be treated as 4-way stops, do no good if drivers can't see that there used to be a stoplight there — say, at night.


Signs of the Times
A steakhouse along the route to work had a mildly twisted sign after Charley, as if the top portion was meant to turn on its axis. They fixed it. After Frances, the top was spun more, and the middle part spun too. They fixed it. Now, the middle is spun a bit, and the top is shattered — but the frame didn't spin one bit.

The IHOP nearby used to have a 3-panel sign. Charley took the top panel that said, "International." Frances took the bottom panel with the IHOP banner. Jeanne took nothing, leaving just the middle panel of "House of Pancakes."

A Texaco station has been in the process of conversion to Chevron for two months — involving replacement of underground tanks, I think. They put a Chevron cover over the high Texaco sign before Charley, and it blew away. They replaced it, Frances took it. They didn't bother this time — and Jeanne shattered half the Texaco logo.

The freeway sign for the Arabian Nights dinner show lost some pieces and part of the readerboard during Charley, lost a bit more during Frances, and now is a twisted loss. The top hangs upside down near the bottom, and the decorative column hiding the steel pole looks a bit like Jenga.

Otherwise, mainly the usual. A lot of broken signs and missing billboards, trees down along the route to work, lots of debris along the roadsides, and drainage canals full to the banks. One 7-11 gas station's canopy twisted to the ground. Some of these would have been worth pictures if this wasn't round three, and I'm just tired of it.

Of course, it could be worse. During the worst of the storm I dreamt of relocating to Washington State. You know, that place with the soon-to-be-active-again volcano.