Good Bye to Hurricane Isaac & Asplundh!

I'm pleased to say that we finally have Justin's last storm behind us!

Long story short, after 4 years of letting storms interrupt our lives for various lengths of time, we're DONE!  No more ice storms, snow storms, hurricanes, windstorms, you name it!

Almost two weeks ago, Justin left for Hurricane Isaac and returned home yesterday morning.  He had just enough time to do some laundry, watch a movie and sleep in his own bed before reporting this evening to his new job with Union Pacific!

So, here's a quick run-down of his last storm.

As the hurricane neared Louisiana, the guys got called out and I dropped Justin off at the yard around 4:00 am that Tuesday morning.  

The guys drove down to Beaumont, TX so they could ride out the storm in a fairly safe location.  Once the storm made land-fall, they attempted to drive into New Orleans where all the dispatched crews were supposed to report. 

As you can imagine, they ran into a slight problem on their way there...FLOODING.  At one point, they were 45 minutes away from downtown New Orleans.  But because of the flood waters, they had to back-track several hours away until they could find an alternative way to get into the city.

Eventually, they pulled into NOLA, ate supper and met up at the Sheraton.  The local utility company had made arrangements for the crews to be put up at the Sheraton until they could distribute their assignments--but again, they ran into another problem.  There were 15,000 utility workers in NOLA, but nowhere near that many rooms at the Sheraton.  

Based on what Justin reported, it became chaotic at this point.  The 14,500 workers that couldn't get rooms at the Sheraton started running all over downtown and the French Quarter trying to secure a  room...and most of the guys deserted their crews.  It became each man for himself!  Fortunately, like the wise guys that they are, our Asplundh guys stuck together and found rooms at the Westin.

You mean, Justin's on a hurricane and staying at the Westin?!  Must be rough!

A lot of the guys, Justin included, were kinda excited about being in New Orleans as they'd never been there.  That's right--my own Southern husband had never been to New Orleans!  He's spent TONS of time in Northern and Central Louisiana, but he had never made it that far south.

Unfortunately, though, this is what the city looked like by the time they got there...

The French Quarter

Downtown

After the first night in New Orleans the guys spread out around the state and got to work...and the Westin was long gone!

From this point forward, they got to shower in one of these trailers...and SLEEP in these trailers!  Inside the trailers were cots and electrical outlets.  The cots were small enough that Justin didn't even fit, so he had to sleep in the fetal position after working 16-hour shifts.  Not the most pleasant experience but he just kept reminding himself that this was his last storm!

Every morning, the guys would meet in the staging area to receive their work orders for the day and eat breakfast under a large event tent.

Somehow, they managed to have more workers than they had work trucks, so a lot of the guys were bussed to their work areas--and bussed back at the end of the day.  Fortunately, as a Foreman, Justin was able to drive to and from his work site!

The guys worked hand-in-hand with linemen from all over the country to restore power.  They worked 16-hour days,  every single day.  Not that the schedule was any different from other storms, but every other time, Justin had a decent place to rest at night.  Obviously, this wasn't the case with Hurricane Isaac and Justin was just so glad that this was his last time doing this!

Slowly, the crews started to be released back home.  Justin's crew was released Friday morning and instructed to drive as far as they could in 16 hours.  The guys ended up in Perry, Oklahoma and found out they were getting called out to ANOTHER storm.  Knowing he had to start his new job on Sunday evening, Justin tried to beg out of the storm and  to his surprise, the begging worked!

Except, he had no way getting back to Kansas.

To keep with the unpredictable nature of our lives, Justin found this out at midnight and called to tell me this.  And to make things better--he had to be out of the hotel room by 10am.  I did the math and that meant I would have to be on the road no later than 6am in order to get to Perry in time.  Just dandy :-)

As I was getting into my car the following morning, Justin called to say that he found a ride to Wichita. Thank the Lord!!!  I'd still have to be down there by 8:30 am, but that was so much more do-able!

We've always had a love-hate relationship with the storm work. The overtime is REALLY nice for our bank account, but every other part of it just sucks.  I can't put it any other way!   Every job has a part that you dread, but I know we're both glad to have this behind.  Asplundh has been very, very good to Justin but he won't miss occasionally sleeping in cots and showering in semi trailers!

In just a few short hours, Justin starts his new job as a Railroader.  We have no idea what lies ahead of us, but we'll soon find out!