12/12/2023
Ok. Let’s start here. Me, Keri McPeak, Mackinzie McPeak, and all 5 critters are all alive and kicking. It’s been one hell of 3 day span.
Saturday, myself and Keri were at the F&M Bank arena about to work a basketball game and Mackinzie was doing her bowling league when Tornado warnings/watches starting going off. A F3 tornado came through our town killing 3 people, injuring many more and destroying numerous homes and businesses. Our house was not damaged at all, we are so blessed.
Our power on the other hand, has not been on since 12/9 at 2pm ish. So we are 68 hours into no power for us. Not as simple to pack up and stay with a friend or go to a hotel with the 4 dogs so we have been toughing it out. Sat/Sun night slept with layers on and an extra blanket and made it work.
Monday morning I was able to get a heater adapter to put on my propane tank and get some heat in the room yesterday morning. Thankfully my Case Manager with the VA came through with a generator for us to have some minimal power about 9pm last night.
Here is the scary part, about 1:45 we were woken up to the CO2 alarms going off in our house. Walked outside and the generator was smoking and turn off on its own as I got about 5 feet away from it. Being safe and not sorry I called 911 and had them come and test/check. CO2 levels are deemed bad above 35, but inside our upstairs where we were asleep they were above 80. If not for replacing batteries and having good dectors we would not be writing this today. 3am this morning we were able to use the propane heater and get back to sleep with Keri/Mack in the bed with the dogs and me in the floor.
Thankfully Case manager had a smaller backup generator that we can use for a small heater in one room, the fridge, and some phone charging.
There are many people hurting in this town this week, keep us all in your thought and prayers and may life return as close to normal soon as it can.
