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[RC] Tennessee Hurricane - rides2far@xxxxxxxxO.K. I'm caught up on what I missed, now I'll tell ya how Ivan looked when it hit Tennessee/N.Georgia. My house has no electricity or phone and won't for a couple of days. We're settled in for the long haul. The girls & I got out the ice cream, split it three ways and ate it. Can't have it running all over the freezer. Now I'm trying to figure out how to fry battered chicken fillets on a one burner coleman hot plate. As sure as we eat everything to keep it from spoiling the power will come on instantly. :-P We're considering taking turns blowing in the fish tank with a straw to keep them going. Husband works for the power company so I won't have a husband for a few days either. Bill was taking this one seriously. They'd warned him at work it would be as bad as Opel was a few years ago and there were lots of extended (10 days for some) power outages here then. We may be inland be we've got more trees than most places. He was told to pack a bag when he came to work Thurs. I was given orders to prepare ice chests, don't buy frozen food etc. Instead I had my own list of "to do's"...re-dig the ditch around the barn, tighten tarps to guard from rain blowing in on hay, etc. Have one horse that thinks he'll melt if rain hits him so put him up Wednesday night since it was supposed to start raining at midnight. Other four horses think they'll die a horrible death if made to stay indoors so put off putting hay under their shed and threw it out in the field "one more time". Next morning no rain. Came to school and couldn't get a thing done for the students asking "do you think we'll have school tomorrow". The guy on the weather channel reporting from Montgomery looked awfully dry to me and I felt bad for having put the hay under the shed Thurs. AM. FINALLY the rain showed up Thursday afternoon and Yep, it was a hurricane I recon. This morning the big flat backed buckets hanging on the fence were running over they had so much rain in them. I'd left a muck bucket that was empty by the barn and it was full within about 5" of the top (no it wasn't under an overhang). I had put Ben "the melter" in a stall that had hay stacked next to it. This is such a dainty eater & drinker that he wouldn't spill a bucket of water if you put it in the middle of the stall. Well, apparently Rock, the class clown put him up to pulling as many bales of hay as he could reach down into his stall and tearing them apart cause this morning he could almost have walked out of the stall he was standing on so much hay. :-P The "Freshman Class" got a lesson in how to handle luxury. Both 4 year olds were bought from places where they'd been raised with no barn. It took them awhile to get used to the sound of the rain on the roof but they seemed pretty fascinated with the fact that it was torrentially raining outsise the shed and they were dry. I think they liked it, they were bone dry this morning. They did call school off which is great...one of the bonuses of being a teacher...every night when you go to bed you think, "Maybe it'll snow...or there'll be a hurricane..." O.K. back from a brief interruption....approximately 20 firemen in full gear and 6 firetrucks just left. I had the bright idea of coming in to my classroom, charging the cell phone & computer and catching up on grading (try grading a drawing sometime and you'll see why I put it off). While I sat here typing to you guys the custodian flipped a breaker in my box back on (thought it was the alarm) and left. Not long after I smelled smoke and noticed it drifting down from the gaps in the ceiling of my portable (the big ugly outside the main school buildings which I love for privacy's sake). Sooo....made a quick call to 911, unplugged my laptop and put it in my car and resisted the urge to check my mail while a very irritated principal hosted the throng of firemen tromping around my messy classroom. Note to self, along with wearing clean underwear in case of a wreck...clean classroom more often in case of fire. I hate to think what Biltmore must look like now if they got this storm on top of the flooding they were already experiencing. Saw photos of water almost to the roof of that gift shop we pass at the entrance and lapping in the doors of the McDonalds. Put this on top of that and they'll be climbing the top of the hill on the blue loop to stay dry. :-P Oh well. That's the word from the rear of the front. Man, I dread explaining those fire trucks to everybody. :-( Angie ________________________________________________________________ Get your name as your email address. 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