2 weeks after the storm

I wanted to say that when I started writing, it was from the beginning, things that I remember, wrote down at the time, and/or rehash over and over in my head.  I am hoping that at some point there will be an ending.  We are currently 5 week and 4 days out from the storm.  Granted we are still homeless, and one car down but we are sheltered, clothed, well fed, and have reliable transportation. We are working, going to school, and even finding time write a blog. The city is still badly damaged and as best I can describe it is that the local government, our community citizens, and local businesses are acting as a band aid holding this big gaping wound together.  I still cry most every day, sometimes twice a day. I drive through the damaged section several times a day, looking for any sign of new construction or clean-up.  AND as much as I hate to, I have to remind people that I am a survivor and still not up to 100 % yet.  I hate being vulnerable and I hate having to remind people but they forget so easily.

So back to the story I suppose.  Thank goodness we were still looking for rental houses when we found out the first one was rented out from under us. This next house was not as well suited for us but at this point we didn’t care, it was good enough. It did need a few things done to it before we could move in but the guy seemed willing to do this.  We started an application and planned on trying to get things moved in within 2 weeks or so.  The storage unit was rented so we were able to have a temporary place to store our belongings.  Finally, some peace for our busy minds, our concentration could go towards arguing with the insurance company, FEMA, and our leasing agent.  Here we were 2 weeks out and our insurance company had not contacted us at all about our belongings claims. 

The cars were still damaged.  Mine went to the body shop the Monday after the storm.  It would be 3 weeks before they could get to it and tell whether or not the frame was cracked making it impossible to repair.  I had no choice but to leave it there, it was not safe to drive.  It had been two weeks now since I left it with them and they still could not tell me if it was too badly damaged to repair. Bobby was back at work and had to take our one means of transportation to Birmingham each day so I was relying on rides to and from work.  Don’t get me wrong it was nice to have an excuse to be around people that loved and supported us but with the large amount of errands I needed to run each day while Bobby was in Birmingham I felt I might start testing the limit of my chauffeurs’ kindness.  We didn’t have the money for a rental car we made do with what we could.

Sometime during this week things went south at work for me. I would love to write a detailed account of it all but seeing as how I still need a job I can only say that the events that followed drove me to a nervous breakdown on an elevator at my building.  I was mortified; I felt like running away, I began to wonder what the job market was like in Colorado. I thought for sure I would end up unemployed, or even worse sent to the Looney Ben.  After several discussion with several of my bosses (yes I have like 5 of them) it was determined I would move to another building.  So here I am having to cope with a huge amount of change already and taking on one more huge change for the summer sent my psych splitting in several directions.  I know these people had to think by now I was absolutely out of my mind!  From this point out I was in a constant state of confusion, I didn’t know when I was moving, how my job would change, why no one was talking to me about each step, was I being punished, was I being helped, what had I done wrong, what did I need to do to prepare, what was going to happen to stuff, what would my new work home look like.  Oh god I couldn’t sleep, all I could think about was work, I had my life falling apart around me and all I could think about was doing my job and what was going to happen to me there.

So all this was going on with work, we were living at a friend’s house on an air mattress.  We were down to one car but we were positive we would be able to sign a lease within a few days for a new rental house.  We were weary of the house, it wasn’t anything like our old house, it was more expensive, and it was in a completely different location. So for the love of god why did we go to the bank!  I look back on some of these decisions and think, am I glutton for punishment, am I trying to have myself committed?  We went to the bank, we thought what the hell, here we are going to have to pay a larger rental payment for a smaller house and we had already been treated as second class citizens because we were renters what is the harm in just talking with someone.  So there we were sitting at the bank talking with a loan officer about applying for a mortgage with the FHA program for disaster victims.  After the countless times we had tried before I assumed it would be like any other time, we would be told no.  My student loans were too high, the credit scores were not high enough to compensate, etc. etc. etc. I braced myself for the bad news, thinking why am I putting myself through this.  The bad news didn’t come; the loan officer seemed hopeful, confident that we could get a loan.  I was in a state of euphoria; I didn’t know what to think.  Here we were ready to sign a lease, we knew we would be in Tuscaloosa at least 3 to 4 more years and we just threw another wrench in the pile.  We gave the loan officer all our information and said we would compile the necessary paperwork as soon as possible.  We had to make the biggest decision of our marriage within a matter of hours.  Should we go ahead with trying for  home loan and lose what we felt was probably the only opportunity we had to find suitable housing or should we just sign the lease and put this one time chance out of our minds. Stay tuned for the next episode of drama in south…..3 weeks after the storm.

PS.  I am sure so many of you were very worried about our local Starbucks like I was.  I am happy to inform you that after about 6 weeks of no store they are finally back open.  They were very diligent in serving their customers from a trailer and I thank them profusely for doing so.

Still Refugees

Days turned into a whole week as we searched for housing and spent god awful amount of time on hold with the insurance company, FEMA, our leasing agent, etc.  Our insurance wanted to know what was being done with the house, our leasing agent had to know what their insurance was going to say.  It went round and round in circles like this for days.

At this point much of Tuscaloosa was trying to get back to normal and the University was in full swing.  Bobby and I returned to work the following week to find mostly warm receptions and support.  We felt terrible for not being at work and even worse when people wanted us to track our time once we returned.  So many people we work with or encounter on a daily basis were not affected by the storm, many didn’t even know what had happened to Tuscaloosa. I understand we had to push forward and keep going but I wasn’t ready, I wasn’t prepared to leave all those memories behind just yet.  I felt I was in a twilight zone, I was told my personal problems should not get in the way of work, I was told that we must move forward and not let this hinder progress, I felt I was the only sane person there who understood the devastation that lay just blocks away from my place of employment. Driving through it every day not being able to find my way to the work on the roads I normally took because the landmarks were gone and I was lost was constant and real for me, I couldn’t comprehend how others could dismiss the tragedy.  I was angry, appalled, and saddened by the lack of sympathy that so many showed toward this tragedy.  Don’t get me wrong, the University as a whole has been amazing and the level of support from so many departments have been outstanding and encouraging.  Isn’t that why we are here?  We are the community right?  I had hoped so, that’s why I work here; I just wish everyone felt like that.

Trying to maintain control over my job responsibilities and my independence was very hard that first week returning to work.  I wanted to share everything with everyone but I also had this feeling of being exposed and dependent.  I didn’t realize how private a person I really was or how much I value my independence until it was all taken away from me.  I wanted so badly to share everything with everyone when they seemed so concerned about me yet I also desperately wanted my privacy.  So much conflict internally and externally my psych was crumbling.  I cried every day for hours, sometimes because of nothing at all, sometimes because of a thought, and then sometimes by something someone said. Everything was moving to slow and to fast at the same time nothing was getting fixed but nothing was getting worse.  Again being in the twilight zone was all I kept thinking about, this wasn’t real it was all a dream.

The week passed and we had not found a storage unit nor a home to rent.  We had been looking and had leads on rental houses but nothing was working out.  So many of the properties were destroyed and others not available until August.  We found one house that was perfect, it was huge, we could have Bobby’s siblings live with us for another year and we all could save money.  I liked the idea of not being alone, I had come to be very dependent on people being around every hour of the day.  We were going to sign a lease and be able to move in 2 weeks later.  Hurray things were looking up!  I called back on Monday to tell the agent we were headed down to bring the deposit.  The agent with no empathy or care told us that sorry someone rented it this morning.  How could this have happened we were bringing the deposit down on Monday we told him we would, how could he just rent it out from under us.  What had the world come to!  He said an insurance company called that morning and put a full deposit and a few months rent down on the house, didn’t even want to see it.  I was so angry, heartbroken.  We thought we had a plan, an ending to this story, but no we were still homeless, still refugees in a civilized nation.

Fumbling in the dark

As we visited the house each day volunteer after volunteer approached us asking if they could help, what we needed, etc.  Bobby and I were at a loss for words the majority of the time and could only say, nothing we were fine, because honestly we didn’t know what we needed.  Finally after some coaxing one volunteer determined we needed help getting our belongings packed up and that we needed moving supplies.  I agreed to accept them and told her we would be back the next day to start packing. Arriving at the house the next morning we came up to find a small army of teenagers from the church down the street waiting to help box up all our belongings that survived.  We were touched and overwhelmed all at the same.  I didn’t know where to tell them to start so I just told them to pack what they could, I didn’t care how it was packed just that it needed to be packed and moved out.  Again our belongings were sheltered in the two rooms we felt were secure enough to hold everything until they could be moved to a better location.

We were drawing near to our wits ends by the time we found a storage unit to put our belongings in.  Oh the cost!  At this point in the story insurance had been hit or miss.  FEMA decided our house could not be deemed unsafe or uninhabitable, later the city would condemn it, that’s government for you.  Our cars had been assessed and checks were written.  Both, it seems could be fixed but the time it would take would be weeks.  I had no choice but to give mine up to the body shop, it was not drivable.  Bobby’s truck however we held on to as our only means of transportation.  Apparently rental cars were not covered in my auto insurance, something I didn’t know and would have gladly been paying for. We had yet to find a house to rent and we felt time was running out before the bad weather would arrive again.  Finally my father made a decision to come back up once again with a covered trailer.  He would get all he could and take it back to Opelika.  As we loaded box after box in the trailer I finally felt a sense of ease.  My belongings were going to be safe at home with my parents.  It is silly but they were all I had left I wanted them to stay unharmed. As I think back on it I wonder how much of it survived the frenzied packing and the hurried loading. I suppose I will find out one day.

The week that followed

The first weeks after the tornado are mostly a blur now but here is what I remember:

The day after the tornado my mother, father, sister, brother-in-laws, sister-in-law, two close friends and one of their fathers set out to uncover the cars from the garage.  I don’t know why we decided that was what needed to be done but it was as good a place to start as any.  The cars were buried under 3 large pine trees and layers of ceiling.  The insulation was everywhere; we were breathing it, wearing it, and at one point eating it.  It took 7 men to get the cars out and one very large pick-up truck.  To our surprise they both cranked up and we were able to back them out.  To my devastation my car, my baby, the thing that I cherished the most was so badly damaged it looked like it had been in a 3 car pile-up.  Bobby’s brand new truck looked well in a word pathetic but it was drivable and fixable.

The cars were finally free and the majority of our energy was spent.  Everyone was sunburned and dehydrated but there was so much more to be done.  We didn’t know what to do about the roof the trees were still sticking out of the house and tarps would be impossible to get on until the trees were taken out however it was very obvious climbing on them or entering the house at that area was extremely unsafe.

With the help of my family and friends we began packing more necessity items like clothes and toiletries that we could find that were not covered in glass or water damaged.  We ended up filling 2 suitcases and a basket full of clothes to take with us in Bobby’s truck.  The rest was divided into what we wanted to save and what could be left behind.  Our most valuable items that survived (pictures, jewelry, electronics, and documents) were to go with my parents back to Opelika for safe keeping the rest stayed in the house. Windows were boarded up and I started to deadbolt the doors (for the life of me I am not sure why, it wasn’t going to stop someone from coming in).

The next thing was to assess the furniture and what survived the initial storm and what did not.  We are very lucky a lot of our items survived but for how long we didn’t know.  There were open holes everywhere and the good weather would not hold for too many more days.  We decided to tarp what we could and leave it.

The day had its ups and downs with happy moments and a lot of sad moments as we realized what was lost and who was lost in our neighborhood.

We spent the first 5 days after the tornado at a friend of a friend’s house with all 4 adults sharing a room and bathroom.  We took comfort that we were all together and we felt separation anxiety when we were apart.  I look back on it and think that if it had not been for Jackson and Megan I would not be able to strongly push forward as I am today.  Our friends all of them here in Tuscaloosa and far away mean so much to us and they have been nothing but wonderful.  Our family, from the countless day trips to the phone calls to the offerings they have given are what has helped Bobby and I the most and we are forever in debt to all of you!