Wednesday, September 07, 2005

Another update

Susan has returned to Long Beach. Her house is indeed intact. There are some trees down and her insurance will not cover the removal of said trees as they did not land on the house. Therefore, Tom and I (and Oreo) are probably going to head down next weekend to help clear the trees.
If you're wondering at the delay it's because a) Susan has said that there is no hurry; b) we feel that the supply situation, especially regarding gasoline, may improve over the next week; and c) we wanted to give some warning to our employer before heading down. Fortunatley, Tom has vacation time accrued and even if he didn't no one here would begrudge him the few days off to go down and help out in a small way.
The trees did take out the shed in the back yard and the fence between her and her neighbor's property - which Brownie and Blue are enjoying immensely as, so far as they're concerned, they just got an extra yard in which to frolic and torment possums, squirrels, turtles, etc...
There are also trees that just fell on the ground. Crews are supposed to be picking up debris placed on the curbside sometime in the next few weeks, so unless someone has a pressing need for wet firewood and a truck in which to haul it off, that's where the trees are going.
As of the last attempt phone calls in to her land-line were not working. The line rings and rings and goes to her voicemail, but apparently does not ring in the house. Calls to her cell phone also do not work, but she is able to call out. Text messages will reach her, but are often delayed by a few hours or more.