Cecily and I have been on
vacation in the mountains of North Carolina since August 19, so we have endured
the runup to Irma mostly as an emotional cyclone! Inevitably we needed to head back to
civilization, and Irma only delayed our need to return. However when it became clear that Irma was
going to be a nasty bitch who ate trees and houses, we decided to go only as
far as Atlanta and hideout at my brother-in-law's house until Irma did her
thing.
The most trying part of the
experience was extracting my sister-in-law, Tracy from Naples, and daughter, Shaune in Tampa, from
the disaster zones so they wouldn't be killed. Neither one of them really
wanted to leave, but after the media scared them to death enough they reluctantly
headed out......toting Tucker and our two cats.
So here is THAT story which is the real horror show!
For those of you who know
Noose, Meese and Tucker, you know that they are independent and....how shall I
put it....vocal when they are unhappy.
We asked Nick Romary, one of
our LDM team to help Tracy stuff each cat into a cat carrier that was two sizes
too small. Meese, the monk, was
submissive, but Noose, was having none of it.
I got a frantic call from Nick that they couldn't get Noose in the
'box', so what should they do. The
terror and hesitancy in his voice conjured up a scene of biting and scratching
that I had only experienced a few times with Noose, but was glad that I was
dealing with this from a distance of 600 miles!
I told them to put him in a pillow case and then lower the pillow case
into the cat carrier, which apparently they did without major injury!
So then Tracy, her cat,
Tucker and our two cats headed up I-75 for Atlanta where we were waiting for
them. They got as far as Ellenton (just
north of Sarasota) when Tracy's car crapped out, so the menagerie had to find a
motel to spend the night. The next
morning, we managed to guide them to Caitlin's house in Tampa where they camped
with Caitlin's roommate and her cat....get the picture? Catpocalypse!
It was truly a "Cat 5" situation!
As the warnings about Irma
became more dire, we persuaded Shaune to collect our animals and head to
Atlanta while Tracy decided she preferred a local shelter. More on that nightmare another time.
So Shaune drove all night
with the newly reconstituted menagerie of Tucker, our two cats in their
'2Xnothing' boxes, and Shaune's two dogs, Anabelle and Stella. They drove from 1am all night long and arrived
early Friday morning.
The cats were in 'bad humor'
after being in the boxes for 10 hours and had urinated in the cat carriers and
on themselves, so Shaune's car was literally a 'shit show'. Cecily and I grabbed the two cats and made a
bee-line for the tub and gave the cats a bath.
For both cats, that was the final indignity! Here they had endured confinement, noise, strange people, strange hotel rooms and houses, and now finally the people who are supposed to
love them.....were trying to drown them!!
Meese has no claws so he was manageable, but Noose was having a hissy! He bit the crap out of my thumb and
was a nightmare to clean off and dry.
So we all spent the next
three days nursing our wounds... and pride... with the cats in the bathroom and the dogs running free. Fortunately Ed has a fenced in yard which
they loved. Shaune and her dogs left on
Monday morning and Cecily and I left on Wednesday morning.
We are now back in Naples and
lordy its a mess! Trees uprooted
everywhere, signs damaged, street signs ripped out of the ground, flooded
areas, etc. Our neighborhood is pretty
nasty, although our place came through the storm with relatively little
damage. Lots of tree branches down and
all kinds of detritus everywhere. But it
will all clean up in a few weeks. More
problematic is the lack of gas, power, internet, banking services, etc. This is a resilient community
though and people here know what a wonderful place it is, so I am sure the shell shock will be short-lived.