Hot

Still no power. The house is now thoroughly saturated with heat and humidity. The books are curling. We are drooping. The generator made strange I-think-I’m-gonna-die noises (like before it runs out of gas, but the tank was full) until we gave it a three-hour rest. During which the freezer temperature rose six degrees.

Much of the area has power now, but we’re in the middle of a big dead zone running from at least Blue road north of us to US 1 south, and starting at least at 62nd Ave to the west, running to the university to the east. Even the traffic lights, repaired most other places, are dead in this area. Occasionally we see a power truck rolling by, or doing something mysterious and ineffectual on one of the larger streets. The only cheerful note has been a tree trimming crew coming down a street, surely a precursor of the electric crew, right? Right?

In past storms, FP&L has had a pretty nifty system by which you called their computer, and they told you how long it would be before you had power. This time, perhaps due to the size of the damage, they just said “90% of customers will have power by Tuesday; the remainder by Friday.” Today’s paper said they were going to get more specific, and give us predictions on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. Well, if so, the prediction for my neighborhood is grim:

This is Monday’s update on restoring power after Hurricane Katrina.

Power in your area will be restored by the end of the day on Friday, or sooner.

This is the most current and complete information available for your area.

I trust that they are just being cautious. Right?