More IKE and HBU

UPDATE:  Forget what I said about electricity.  The university still does not have power.  I’m praying it will be restored on Friday.

I promise to return to blogging about things other than the storm, but right now I’m furtively grabbing a little access outside a Panera that has no food, but does have internet access.  Bless them.

The university has probably just gotten its electricity back by today.  I visited yesterday and checked out the damage.  Our main administrative buildings are in really bad shape.  The good news is that we can largely protect the student experience because of our newer facilities built in the last year.  The less good news is that my office is part of what will likely be condemned and I’ll probably be working from a laptop on somebody’s porch, LIKE NOW.

In seriousness, there is a lot of work to be done.  We’ve made a tremendous amount of progress at HBU during the last couple of years.  We’ll do everything we can in God’s providence to protect that momentum and keep moving forward.  If you want to pray for us, pray for strong support from donors and alumni.  Also pray for good natured and honest insurance adjusters.

And if you should just happen to want to make a tax deductible donation or just keep up with the last information, go to www.hbu.edu.

You Gonna Tell IKE?!!!

Our power went out around 4 pm on Friday. The storm came on hard around midnight. We had the kids bedded down in a half bath with no windows. They slept through it. Ruth and I kept watch in the living room, occasionally sleeping a little. The room is full of windows. We did it to be close to the kids.

I remember the raw fear of being awake through the night for Hurricane Elena in Pensacola back in the mid-eighties. This was better and worse. Better because I had experienced severe weather before and didn’t face the unknown. Worse because this storm just went on and on for hours.  I kept wondering when the assault would compound into serious damage to the house.  Kept waiting for that shower of broken glass.

At about 3 a.m., I realized water was blowing in under the back door. Didn’t seem to be enough to worry about. By 6 a.m. it was beginning to accumulate somewhat impressively. We stuffed towels and saran wrap under the door before my wife decided one of us needed to go in the backyard and remove leaves from the path of drainage from the porch. I put on a hard hat and went out into the storm, largely to keep her from doing it.

At first, it was a little thrilling. The wind gusting hard. Rain hitting like b-b’s. I scooped wet leaves. Then I looked up in the pale blue light of early dawn. The landscape of my backyard was different, but I couldn’t quite make out why. In the space of seconds, I realized most of my wooden fence was missing and that a whole section of it was hanging precariously from another section. In other parts, the boards had simply exploded. Suddenly, it occurred to me that this was not a safe place at all.

The storm has passed and I’m now happily watching the NFL at a friend’s house that amazingly has power. I’m grateful, since my house has become hot, dark, and BORING for children. My two little ones were beginning to act out The Lord of the Flies.