Hurricane Wilma

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

I am at my parent's house to pick something up, and to my surprise they have

power.

Unfortunately, we still don't (it has now been almost 5 days). Hurricane Wilma

did a lot of

damage near us. Our power went out in the early morning hours of 10/24, and we

are not

expected to get power back until 11/22 (worst case scenario). It is crazy down

here. 3.2

million people were out of power in South Florida at first, and only half of

that has been

restored. Lines to get gas are anywhere from 4 - 8 hours long and water and ice

are hard

to come by too. I haven't personally waited in any lines for these, but the

lines for ice

distribution are just as long. There are no traffic lights anywhere. Many were

blown away,

and those that are still there don't have power. I have had a hard time getting

's

medicine and medical supplies, but we are managing. He is bolus feeding himself

during

the day, so that he can charge it for nighttime use with a generator. Normally

he is on

continuous feedings 16 hours a day. I am going crazy at home with no power and

the kids

home, as they have been out of school now for over a week. Our county (Broward)

has

262+ schools with more than 270,000 students. According to the news, only 30

schools

are operational as of now. That means the kids will not return to school on

Monday.

Ordinarily that would be great, since it is Halloween. But with no power, we

have curfews

here, and we are postponing Halloween & trick-or-treating in our neighborhood

until the

power comes back on. We were very lucky though in terms of damage to our house.

We

lost 2 big trees, our screen porch ripped, there are a few roof tiles missing

from our

house, and we have a roof leak over the garage. There are some people near us

who lost

their entire roofs, patios, etc. Our county got hit the hardest, but since the

storm was so

big, I think it spanned 20 counties. Anyhow, just wanted to let everyone know

that we are

ok, and I probably won't be online for a bit longer. In addition to no power,

we also have

no phones, but it seems like every other neighborhood around us did not lose

their

telephone service. For the first 3 days, our cell phones weren't working

either, so we

virtually had no way of communicating. We are ok for now with supplies, but I

am worried

about what will happen if we don't get our power back until 11/22 as predicted.

Kim C.