This summer has gone by rather quickly. Isaac spent all of June and July studying for the bar exam. He took the exam the last week of July, yay! I spent the summer photographing a kids adventure camp. I hung out on a cliff photographing kids rock climbing, rappelling, and zip lining. So for the most part we kept pretty busy trying to keep up with all the things we had going on. I kept thinking all summer, if we can just make it to the end of August... Well, we had a very interesting end of August here in Richmond.
Tuesday the 23rd, I was photographing my last day of camp. I was enjoying the beautiful day and being outside. We had a few weeks of very hot and humid weather this summer, so an 80 degree day with a nice breeze was a welcomed event. I was waiting for the kids to come to the spot where I was so I could photograph them before they went off the zip line and I felt the ground shaking. It sounded like a train was passing by and I thought, hmm that is weird that I can feel the train all the way over here. There are train tracks across the river from Belle Isle where the camp is so I am used knowing trains come by, but you can only feel them when you are under them or on their side of the river. The kids came and then I began photographing them without another thought of the shaky ground. Well, a little while later Isaac sent me a text saying he thought we just had an earthquake and wanted to make sure I was okay. Of course, the ground shaking would equate to an earthquake, that would make sense. I had a hard time texting him back but I was okay and he was okay. He was working on a document review in the governor's office in downtown Richmond. His initial thought was "I'm in a government building I wonder if this is a bomb." Thankfully it wasn't.
It is not a common occurrence for there to be earthquakes on the east coast. This earthquake was a 5.9, which from my limited experience with earthquakes is rather large. In California a 5.9 usually does a lot of damage and many people are affected. The amazing part with earthquakes on the east coast is they can be felt for many miles away. We read that a 5.5 earthquake in the east can be felt up to 300 miles away, so it is no surprise that this 5.9 earthquake was felt from Georgia to Canada to Illinois. Thankfully there was little damage and no one was hurt. The Washington DC temple lost the tips to four spires and the Washington National Cathedral sustained some damage, which I find interesting that there was more damage in DC than in Richmond and we were much closer to the epicenter. But again, I'm so glad no one was hurt.
Later that night, after I finished all the work that comes along with well, working, I got on my computer for a few minutes and some one on facebook made a comment about "we just had an earthquake now we have to watch out for a hurricane." I thought, "What! A hurricane is headed our way?!?" So it goes. With a hurricane it is nice to have a little forewarning, but after that all you can do it wait to see what course it is going to take and how strong it is going to be when it gets there. So we progressed through the rest of the week, knowing Saturday would be the day.
Funny how things go. With the Virginia Professional Photographers Association (VPPA) I am the current Governor to the Capital District. What that means for me is I am in charge of the Capital District (here in Richmond). But also for our yearly Seminar, I was in charge of registration. For months I have been collecting people's registrations for this event, and now we are anticipating a hurricane. Hmm. We decided to go ahead and have the seminar. The nice thing about the seminar is it was held in Lynchburg, about 2 hours west of Richmond. The hurricane was not supposed to affect much that was west of Richmond so that meant Lynchburg was a great place to be during the hurricane. Everyone made hotel reservations in advance so I said, "Why not? Secure the house and get out of harm's way." I just hoped we wouldn't have a tree through the house when we returned, but at least we would be with friends and not feeling too many effects from the storm. So Saturday afternoon, before the storm got really bad but not before it really started raining and the wind blowing the trees around and the power blinking on and off, we drove west to Lynchburg. I did feel it was important to bring our 72 hour kit with us just in case we had no house to return to and needed to use it. The seminar was great, we had power and friends and learned lots of great things.
Saturday evening we got a call that church was cancelled on Sunday. Not that we were in town and would have been there, but it was good to know. So we called the people we home and visit teach to let them know and to see how they were doing. A few were without power already but otherwise they were good. We returned home late Sunday night and found power on at our house and no tree through anything. That was a relief. The next morning we would find out that most of Richmond was still without power and there were trees down everywhere and electric poles and wires down all over town. I still ended up meeting with and photographing a client because we had power but they still did not. A few schools were supposed to start on Tuesday but were being delayed a few days because they did not have power.
Hurricane Irene was pretty unique. Most of the time a hurricane forms in the ocean and then ends up running perpendicular into land and dies out once it gets over land. Irene ran all the way from the Bahamas up the east coast touched land in North Carolina and kept going parallel to land all the way to New York. This hurricane affected so many states!
The week after...
So we went on through the week. Many stop lights were out so the city put up stop signs to keep traffic organized, but it was crazy trying to work a two lane road with stop signs. Slowly places around town were receiving power. Many people did not have power at home but could go to work. We tried to check on any we could to see if they had their power back and if we could do anything for them. I wanted to help everyone so badly. I feel there are few things we can actually help people with that they are not able to do for themselves, but this time I felt so blessed to still have a house and one that had power that I wanted to help anyone who was not as fortunate. There were many electric crews who came here from other states, (we saw some all the way from Georgia,) to help restore power and we are so grateful for them. I don't know how long it would have taken if they weren't here. There are still a handful of people without power but hopefully they will receive it soon. I can not imagine what it would be like to go without power for an entire week. Thankfully in this situation there were many places who did have power and that power was slowly being restored hour by hour.
Now we just have to keep an eye on Katia, another hurricane, that is currently in the Atlantic, but has a projected path right up to North Carolina and Virginia. I just hope we don't end up in recovery mode again in a week.
Tuesday the 23rd, I was photographing my last day of camp. I was enjoying the beautiful day and being outside. We had a few weeks of very hot and humid weather this summer, so an 80 degree day with a nice breeze was a welcomed event. I was waiting for the kids to come to the spot where I was so I could photograph them before they went off the zip line and I felt the ground shaking. It sounded like a train was passing by and I thought, hmm that is weird that I can feel the train all the way over here. There are train tracks across the river from Belle Isle where the camp is so I am used knowing trains come by, but you can only feel them when you are under them or on their side of the river. The kids came and then I began photographing them without another thought of the shaky ground. Well, a little while later Isaac sent me a text saying he thought we just had an earthquake and wanted to make sure I was okay. Of course, the ground shaking would equate to an earthquake, that would make sense. I had a hard time texting him back but I was okay and he was okay. He was working on a document review in the governor's office in downtown Richmond. His initial thought was "I'm in a government building I wonder if this is a bomb." Thankfully it wasn't.
It is not a common occurrence for there to be earthquakes on the east coast. This earthquake was a 5.9, which from my limited experience with earthquakes is rather large. In California a 5.9 usually does a lot of damage and many people are affected. The amazing part with earthquakes on the east coast is they can be felt for many miles away. We read that a 5.5 earthquake in the east can be felt up to 300 miles away, so it is no surprise that this 5.9 earthquake was felt from Georgia to Canada to Illinois. Thankfully there was little damage and no one was hurt. The Washington DC temple lost the tips to four spires and the Washington National Cathedral sustained some damage, which I find interesting that there was more damage in DC than in Richmond and we were much closer to the epicenter. But again, I'm so glad no one was hurt.
Later that night, after I finished all the work that comes along with well, working, I got on my computer for a few minutes and some one on facebook made a comment about "we just had an earthquake now we have to watch out for a hurricane." I thought, "What! A hurricane is headed our way?!?" So it goes. With a hurricane it is nice to have a little forewarning, but after that all you can do it wait to see what course it is going to take and how strong it is going to be when it gets there. So we progressed through the rest of the week, knowing Saturday would be the day.
Funny how things go. With the Virginia Professional Photographers Association (VPPA) I am the current Governor to the Capital District. What that means for me is I am in charge of the Capital District (here in Richmond). But also for our yearly Seminar, I was in charge of registration. For months I have been collecting people's registrations for this event, and now we are anticipating a hurricane. Hmm. We decided to go ahead and have the seminar. The nice thing about the seminar is it was held in Lynchburg, about 2 hours west of Richmond. The hurricane was not supposed to affect much that was west of Richmond so that meant Lynchburg was a great place to be during the hurricane. Everyone made hotel reservations in advance so I said, "Why not? Secure the house and get out of harm's way." I just hoped we wouldn't have a tree through the house when we returned, but at least we would be with friends and not feeling too many effects from the storm. So Saturday afternoon, before the storm got really bad but not before it really started raining and the wind blowing the trees around and the power blinking on and off, we drove west to Lynchburg. I did feel it was important to bring our 72 hour kit with us just in case we had no house to return to and needed to use it. The seminar was great, we had power and friends and learned lots of great things.
Saturday evening we got a call that church was cancelled on Sunday. Not that we were in town and would have been there, but it was good to know. So we called the people we home and visit teach to let them know and to see how they were doing. A few were without power already but otherwise they were good. We returned home late Sunday night and found power on at our house and no tree through anything. That was a relief. The next morning we would find out that most of Richmond was still without power and there were trees down everywhere and electric poles and wires down all over town. I still ended up meeting with and photographing a client because we had power but they still did not. A few schools were supposed to start on Tuesday but were being delayed a few days because they did not have power.
Hurricane Irene was pretty unique. Most of the time a hurricane forms in the ocean and then ends up running perpendicular into land and dies out once it gets over land. Irene ran all the way from the Bahamas up the east coast touched land in North Carolina and kept going parallel to land all the way to New York. This hurricane affected so many states!
The week after...
So we went on through the week. Many stop lights were out so the city put up stop signs to keep traffic organized, but it was crazy trying to work a two lane road with stop signs. Slowly places around town were receiving power. Many people did not have power at home but could go to work. We tried to check on any we could to see if they had their power back and if we could do anything for them. I wanted to help everyone so badly. I feel there are few things we can actually help people with that they are not able to do for themselves, but this time I felt so blessed to still have a house and one that had power that I wanted to help anyone who was not as fortunate. There were many electric crews who came here from other states, (we saw some all the way from Georgia,) to help restore power and we are so grateful for them. I don't know how long it would have taken if they weren't here. There are still a handful of people without power but hopefully they will receive it soon. I can not imagine what it would be like to go without power for an entire week. Thankfully in this situation there were many places who did have power and that power was slowly being restored hour by hour.
Now we just have to keep an eye on Katia, another hurricane, that is currently in the Atlantic, but has a projected path right up to North Carolina and Virginia. I just hope we don't end up in recovery mode again in a week.
No comments:
Post a Comment