Storms

[Tim Twiss]

I hope we hear from Marc Smith...????

You okay?

[Joel Hooks]

I'm quite worried about him.  

Communications must be completely down, I've written and called numerous times the latter just gets a busy signal.

His town got hit really hard.

[Joel Hooks]

Got word from Marc!  He is OK and unharmed,  No damage to his house.  He will be without communication till sometime next week.

On the down side, many of his friends were in the hardest hit areas, so let's all give our best wishes thoughts to him.

[Tim Twiss]

Thanks for the update Joel.

[Trapdoor2]

Hi y'all!

Thanks Joel, we've finally gotten power/phones. The lights came on at midnight last night...woke up to the ice-maker grinding away in the fridge.

Just now had the TV on and have finally seen much of the destruction. Amazing/sad/crazy.

Very odd being w/o power. Sort of like camping out in your own home. Had to cook all the food in the fridge before it spoiled...but we had to throw a lot out anyway. My brother has taken my boy-scout badges away though...I was completely unprepared. I had no radio, half-a-bag of charcoal, little food and both cars with tanks nearly empty. Once the power was out, we had to sit in the car to listen to the radio. Very lucky the neighborhood grocery store (Publix) had a generator and was open for business the next day.

On the plus side, I've been serenading the neighborhood every evening for an hour or two. Last night was "Stroke Style" night and I got several "thumbs up" from people walking thru. Without power, the neighborhood has been alive with people, I've met neighbors I've never seen. We were very lucky not only to have survived the storms but to have picture perfect weather for days afterwards.

Still worried about my friends who were in the tornado path. You can't get into those areas unless you can show you lived there, no power, no phones, etc. All I can say is their names aren't on the list of the dead...which is a bit of a relief.

Thanks for all the prayers and good thoughts.

===Marc

[Rob Morrison]

Good to have you back Marc!

Rob Morrison

[Greg Adams]

Hang in there Marc. Our thoughts are with you,  your community, and everyone else affected by the events!

[Ian Bell]

Glad to hear you're OK Marc.

There was also concern expressed on another of my "hangouts" -  concertina.net about a concertina maker who is also in Alabama. He checked in eventually too.

The internet can be a weird place sometimes but it can be damn nice from time to time.

[Trapdoor2]

Glad to hear that Bob Tedrow is also ok (I have a Wheatstone anglo and used to post on concertina.net).

Thanks to all for the concern, etc. We've made contact with all of our friends in the affected areas and they're all ok. Only one had a tree fall on their roof along with many trees on their property. In typical fashion, he simply sez he won't be out of firewood for the next 1o yrs.