Water, water everywhere

As a new Relief Society president for only a few weeks (RS is an organization for the women of our church--I'm the president for the women in our congregation) I've been mostly dealing with flood. There have been evacuations, teams sent out to find members who haven't been to church in a while, work teams, donations and a big potluck for workers. The task that proved to be the most difficult was finding assignments for our work crews to do. Since they came only on weekends, we had to be sure that there would be work for them at an address, that there would be an owner willing to sign a release and to stay on the premises. Obviously, I didn't do all this myself. But it was a huge group effort and I had my part to do.

That's why I've been silent for a while.

And this blog hasn't featured photos for a long time because a) it rains every time I think of it and b) we were asked by our church leaders not to take photos of the work sites in deference to the tender feelings of others.

We had even more flooding this week. It's been enormous. The damage has been tremendous and the heartbreak incalculable.

I'm going away, far, far, away tomorrow. It will be a welcome break. Sadly, Michael can't go with me but I get to meet not one but two new grandchildren in Texas and Utah respectively and attend the baptism of my oldest grandson.

It's good knowing that the last of the work crews finished last weekend and that my counselors are more than able to handle things in my absence. And this Sunday is our church's World Conference which means no local meetings but satellite and internet broadcasts.

Life can be very unexpected. I didn't expect to ever be a Relief Society president and to take over the job in such adverse circumstances has been a real surprise. The bigger surprise is that if you asked me, I would tell you I like the job and find great satisfaction in it.

Getting ready for Irene

It's going to be an interesting weekend. We are due for some weather associated with Hurricane Irene but we are on the outer edges of her reach. We keep a supply of stuff for emergencies but I added some more flashlight batteries, drinking water and foods that require no refrigeration or heating up yesterday. Today I got cash. Michael will gas up the third car. Two of the cars already have gas. Michael's lived through enough hurricanes that he knows the importance of having enough gas to get you somewhere out of a danger zone. We almost always have one with a full tank. This afternoon we shift some stuff around in the basement which is wet on a good day and we move into the garage anything that could blow around the yard and damage the house or our cars. We do not have garage space for the cars so will just have to hope for the best on that one.

We live far away from any creek, stream or river and high up on a mountain (relatively speaking of course compared to our daughter who lives in Utah) so we should be clear from any flooding. However, groundwater will come into the basement and if there's no electricity to power our dehumifiers, we will have water in the basement. The Susquehanna is one foot below flood stage so everyone is feeling pretty good about that as well.

Michael is in charge of emergency preparedness at his facility and they think about these things all the time. So he has huge generators there and tanks of fuel ready to be used if needed. Power outages during a blizzard are always possible so this isn't something new. 

We could ignore the whole thing which would be foolish. Much better to be prepared and to have nothing happen than to ignore the situation and find that we are indeed going to suffer from the storm.  Big question right now is whether or not we have church tomorrow as I have to give one or maybe two lessons. Only time will tell on that one.