The storm started up again early evening, and it rained all night
long. In the early morning, it turned into a severe thunderstorm
that prevented us from opening the distribution center today at
all. They were afraid that the tent poles would act as lightning
rods and people would get hurt. I was surprised that anyone would
even show up to get food at the distribution center in such a
storm, since it tends to be moms and their kids. But a few did
show up anyway. We were sorry to have to turn them away.
I slept in this morning because I woke up with a sore throat.
I felt better after a coke to cool off my throat, and some aspirins
that Mary found for me. It turns out the storm was so bad they just
told us to stay in our trailers anyway. Even the mess tent etc.
are natural lightning rods. They even turned off all the computers
and the wireless routers to prevent any damage to them. This meant
we couldn't even use the Powerbook from our trailer because the
wireless system was turned off.
One of the tents Mary and I repaired
In the afternoon, once the storm passed by, they told us just to
clean up the camp, things that the storm had caused. Things like
water in the trash cans. A screen room that Mary and I had put
up before was damaged in the storm and we couldn't repair it
right away, so we took it down. Some other tents that we'd fixed
earlier also suffered some damage. All of the guy lines and other
parts of the tents had rotted away in the changes of weather over
the last few months. Mary and I bought some nylon twine at
84 lumber and we tried to replace all the guy lines, and we also
patched up some of the other problems. We hope this keeps them
going for a few more months.
They took us to Sicily's, all you can eat Italian, buffet style,
with pizza, pasta, salad, and desserts. All the food we can't
ever eat at home! Yum.
I cleaned up the showers again with the power washer because
after dinner there was just enough sunlight left to get that done.
