Waterspout takes out four power poles on St. George Island
08/15/08

On Wednesday, while I was sitting having a nice lunch over in Eastpoint with friends, a waterspout breezed through between the mainland and St. George Island and clipped 4 power poles that carry our main power supply to the island. We saw the poles down in the bay as we came back over the bridge, and we knew exactly what that meant, since almost the same thing happened last year.
The power was not coming back on anytime soon.
So, I went home, waited out some really strong blasts from the storm still coming through in waves from the west, then packed my bags, and headed out to check on property of my customers and friends on the island. Everything looked fine - apparently the twister did not make its way onto land anywhere. So I took off for Gretna to stay with family for the night. Sleeping without air conditioning is something I would just as soon do without!
The top picture at right is what the bay looked like leaving the island Wednesday late afternoon.
By Thursday afternoon Progress Energy had begun hauling the big generators onto the island. They set up 5 generator sites to serve the whole island. The one pictured at right is closest to my house at the end of the next street - I can hear it running from my porch.
So, we're back up to basically full power - they are asking us to conserve electricity to keep the demand on the generators low, but we're all up and running, pretty much as usual.
Progress Energy says they should have the poles reset by next week sometime, and if it's like last time, and we'll be back on permanent power soon thereafter.
The beaches were swept clean as a whistle after all the wind and rain - just gorgeous. We have a new escarpment along my beach, and it looks like no one has ever set foot on the sand it is so beautifully bare.
I got out to take an inventory of the turtle nests along my mile, and it looks like I lost about 4 of the nests closest to the surf, which would be expected. I still have 22 nests I am monitoring, which are still incubating and hatching, one every night or so.
If you have property here and would like me to do a drive-by for you, please do let me know. I've not found any damage so far, just a few small limbs down here and there. Everyone's freezer that I have checked has still had ice in it, so it looks like things are pretty much OK.
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