Post by Bennett D. Ebberly on Sept 24, 2003 9:35:57 GMT -5
Disrupted Lives
In a Weary Region, the Hits Just Keep On Coming
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A01
When the power flickered back on in his Silver Spring townhouse early Monday, David Hilmer was elated. He savored the breakfast routine he had been denied for three days after Hurricane Isabel, brewing fresh coffee, toasting a bagel. "Thank God it's over," he remembers thinking.
It wasn't.
Yesterday at 3 a.m., Hilmer's wife woke him: The power had gone out again.
"I'm very frustrated and angry," said Hilmer, 27, a program analyst with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We thought it was over. We're mystified."
Like Hilmer, thousands of local residents yesterday were distressed to find themselves suffering Round Two of storm fallout: tens of thousands of new blackouts, more flooding and highways so congested they were virtual parking lots. In all, more than 150,000 homes and businesses remained without power.
The heavy rain that began Monday night did not just cause property damage and traffic jams. It was a psychological blow to a hard-driving, take-control region where the most basic routines of daily life have been disrupted.
Some residents decided a sort of autumn jinx had settled on the area.
"Last year it was the sniper. This year it seems the weather will constantly harass us," said Montgomery Blair Principal Phillip F. Gainous, who sent home the high school's 3,300 students about 8:30 a.m. after the school spent about four hours without electricity.
For many people, the little things were the most upsetting. After Hurricane Isabel caused widespread blackouts last week, Hilmer poured his energy into preserving the contents of his refrigerator. He drove to five stores to find ice; he also stowed food at the home of a friend who had power.
On Monday, he triumphantly put his salvaged food back into the refrigerator. Hours later, the power conked out again.
"We assume it's spoiled," he said dejectedly.
Once again yesterday, Hilmer showered in the dark, without the benefit of caffeine. He worried about his two dogs, who usually stay in the well-lit garage while he and his wife work.
"I'm very depressed, very upset," he said.
Victoria Davey, 47, had thought she was well-prepared for Hurricane Isabel. When the power went out in her Bethesda home Thursday afternoon, she, her husband and their 8-year-old daughter were ready with a stash of ice, as well as coolers, flashlights, batteries and candles.
"We felt very, very lucky" when the power surged back on Saturday morning, she said.
But at 9:45 Monday night, her home was suddenly plunged into darkness again.
"I was shocked," she said.
As a manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Davey understands what true suffering is. So she tries not to complain. She won't let her daughter moan about the lack of television or Internet. Their home has hot water and gas for cooking.
"We keep thinking, there are people who are worse affected than we are," she said. Still, she admitted she was struggling to keep her frustration in check.
"For us, our whole circle of existence is affected, from the stores you go to, to the people you talk to daily, to the things you might do," she said.
For David Klann, who lives in the District's Takoma neighborhood, losing power after Hurricane Isabel was just the first blow. Emergency officials closed off a storm-damaged portion of Eastern Avenue and police rerouted all the traffic onto Klann's block of Second Street NW. That means cars, trucks, ambulances, fire trucks -- even full-sized Metro buses -- must squeeze around a tight turn onto his side street.
"All the traffic is coming to our block, and people are zooming up and down here like it's an interstate," said Klann, an employee of a law firm.
Then there's the noise. A backup power generator rumbles continuously at the nearby Washington Theological Union. "It sounds like a freight train going all the time," Klann said. "It's very miserable." Three neighbors moved out because they couldn't take the growl of the generator anymore.
The generator must run to provide basic lighting, security and fire safety, but its hours on Monday were scaled back to the daylight period, a seminary spokesman said.
The rain falls on the just and the unjust, and, in the case of local government, the powerful and the humble. That, at least, seemed to be the conclusion at a meeting of the Montgomery County Council yesterday afternoon, which sounded like the gripe sessions going on all over the region.
Tom Perez and Nancy Floreen had been without power for five days. A tree fell on Marilyn Praisner's home. George L. Leventhal's basement flooded. Chief Administrative Officer Bruce Romer, the man giving them a briefing on Isabel's aftermath, lost power for three days and had been sleeping in his car.
"People are pretty frustrated," Floreen said, ostensibly to Romer, though there wasn't much he could do about it. "The romance of eating by candlelight wears off after four nights. People's patience is wearing real thin."
Leventhal wanted to know why more trees couldn't be trimmed and why more power lines couldn't be buried -- both expensive propositions. "As each day wears on, people's psychology changes," he said. He was referring to the council's need to build on people's sense of urgency after the Isabel crisis.
He could just as easily have been talking about tens of thousands in the area still sitting with flashlights in darkened homes, with fallen branches all around, watching the dry ice wither away.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54981-2003Sep23.html
In a Weary Region, the Hits Just Keep On Coming
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A01
When the power flickered back on in his Silver Spring townhouse early Monday, David Hilmer was elated. He savored the breakfast routine he had been denied for three days after Hurricane Isabel, brewing fresh coffee, toasting a bagel. "Thank God it's over," he remembers thinking.
It wasn't.
Yesterday at 3 a.m., Hilmer's wife woke him: The power had gone out again.
"I'm very frustrated and angry," said Hilmer, 27, a program analyst with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We thought it was over. We're mystified."
Like Hilmer, thousands of local residents yesterday were distressed to find themselves suffering Round Two of storm fallout: tens of thousands of new blackouts, more flooding and highways so congested they were virtual parking lots. In all, more than 150,000 homes and businesses remained without power.
The heavy rain that began Monday night did not just cause property damage and traffic jams. It was a psychological blow to a hard-driving, take-control region where the most basic routines of daily life have been disrupted.
Some residents decided a sort of autumn jinx had settled on the area.
"Last year it was the sniper. This year it seems the weather will constantly harass us," said Montgomery Blair Principal Phillip F. Gainous, who sent home the high school's 3,300 students about 8:30 a.m. after the school spent about four hours without electricity.
For many people, the little things were the most upsetting. After Hurricane Isabel caused widespread blackouts last week, Hilmer poured his energy into preserving the contents of his refrigerator. He drove to five stores to find ice; he also stowed food at the home of a friend who had power.
On Monday, he triumphantly put his salvaged food back into the refrigerator. Hours later, the power conked out again.
"We assume it's spoiled," he said dejectedly.
Once again yesterday, Hilmer showered in the dark, without the benefit of caffeine. He worried about his two dogs, who usually stay in the well-lit garage while he and his wife work.
"I'm very depressed, very upset," he said.
Victoria Davey, 47, had thought she was well-prepared for Hurricane Isabel. When the power went out in her Bethesda home Thursday afternoon, she, her husband and their 8-year-old daughter were ready with a stash of ice, as well as coolers, flashlights, batteries and candles.
"We felt very, very lucky" when the power surged back on Saturday morning, she said.
But at 9:45 Monday night, her home was suddenly plunged into darkness again.
"I was shocked," she said.
As a manager at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Davey understands what true suffering is. So she tries not to complain. She won't let her daughter moan about the lack of television or Internet. Their home has hot water and gas for cooking.
"We keep thinking, there are people who are worse affected than we are," she said. Still, she admitted she was struggling to keep her frustration in check.
"For us, our whole circle of existence is affected, from the stores you go to, to the people you talk to daily, to the things you might do," she said.
For David Klann, who lives in the District's Takoma neighborhood, losing power after Hurricane Isabel was just the first blow. Emergency officials closed off a storm-damaged portion of Eastern Avenue and police rerouted all the traffic onto Klann's block of Second Street NW. That means cars, trucks, ambulances, fire trucks -- even full-sized Metro buses -- must squeeze around a tight turn onto his side street.
"All the traffic is coming to our block, and people are zooming up and down here like it's an interstate," said Klann, an employee of a law firm.
Then there's the noise. A backup power generator rumbles continuously at the nearby Washington Theological Union. "It sounds like a freight train going all the time," Klann said. "It's very miserable." Three neighbors moved out because they couldn't take the growl of the generator anymore.
The generator must run to provide basic lighting, security and fire safety, but its hours on Monday were scaled back to the daylight period, a seminary spokesman said.
The rain falls on the just and the unjust, and, in the case of local government, the powerful and the humble. That, at least, seemed to be the conclusion at a meeting of the Montgomery County Council yesterday afternoon, which sounded like the gripe sessions going on all over the region.
Tom Perez and Nancy Floreen had been without power for five days. A tree fell on Marilyn Praisner's home. George L. Leventhal's basement flooded. Chief Administrative Officer Bruce Romer, the man giving them a briefing on Isabel's aftermath, lost power for three days and had been sleeping in his car.
"People are pretty frustrated," Floreen said, ostensibly to Romer, though there wasn't much he could do about it. "The romance of eating by candlelight wears off after four nights. People's patience is wearing real thin."
Leventhal wanted to know why more trees couldn't be trimmed and why more power lines couldn't be buried -- both expensive propositions. "As each day wears on, people's psychology changes," he said. He was referring to the council's need to build on people's sense of urgency after the Isabel crisis.
He could just as easily have been talking about tens of thousands in the area still sitting with flashlights in darkened homes, with fallen branches all around, watching the dry ice wither away.
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54981-2003Sep23.html