Because I live in mid-Mississippi, I’ve been encouraged to write a blog about what we’re seeing here. I have to say first that we’re very fortunate. We did receive hurricane winds here in the Jackson area, but other than trees falling on houses, most of us came out okay. My family has been without power since Monday, but our inconveniences are so minor compared to the poor residents of the coastal area. Please know that these are not complaints, just my observations about the drama unfolding in my part of the state.
My new book coming out in a few weeks is about a massive global power outage even worse than this one, and I’m wishing I could snatch it back and rewrite it in light of the things I’m experiencing. Did you know kerosene lamps create soot on the ceilings? That you should never allow yourself to be without at least one corded phone in your house, since cordless ones don’t work in power outages? That stubborn children will not eat anything they don’t like, even if they’re starving to death? That power company employees, tree removal services, and men who drive gas and ice trucks are the most valuable human beings during a crisis?
I live about 157 miles inland, yet we’ve been without power since Monday, and some of the neighborhoods near me are being told it will be six weeks or more before they get power. Gasoline is a huge problem here. Lines at gas stations are miles long. My daughter sat in line for three hours in the heat to get gas this morning. People were running out of gas in line and had to push their cars every time the line moved. The generators people are using are depleting the gas. My family doesn’t have a generator, but I don’t think it would help a lot, since gas is so short. We were able to buy more batteries today, which was a real blessing, and we bought an inverter that runs off our car battery, so we can power a lamp and a small television. It’s horrible seeing what’s going on farther south.
We have thousands and thousands of refugees here. A nursing home from New Orleans evacuated to Jackson last Sunday, and a church offered them shelter. However, that church lost their power Monday during the hurricane, and since so many were without power, they had no place to take them. They couldn’t power the equipment they needed, and those elderly people were suffering in upper ninety degree heat. Yesterday, one died.
My church had power and took them yesterday. Some of the doctors and nurses from our church are taking care of them. Some needed feeding tubes and had none. Others needed oxygen. They had no meds. Fortunately, they’re well cared for now. Our church is also about to take some evacuees from another shelter that lost power during the storm, and they’ve housed lots of the electrical workers coming in from other states. Let me just say here how thankful we are for those workers coming in from other parts of the country to help. They are our heroes.
Because we had a freezer that needed defrosting and had thick ice inside it, we were able to keep our food frozen until today. But realizing our power is likely to be out for a while and we can’t save that food much longer, we cleaned out our freezer and took all the food to our church so they could feed the refugees. My husband was able to get slightly north of town and found a Fred’s Dollar Store open, and was able to buy Depends for the elderly, lots of paper products, shampoo and soap and deodorant and baby diapers, etc. We were able to take all that to the shelter. We’ve wanted to help more, but there are lots of people standing around in the way right now. Everyone wants to help.
We have a nine o’clock curfew here. Businesses that have power are forced to close at eight or eight-thirty so that people will get off the street. I can’t confirm this, but I’ve heard that this is to let the emergency vehicles and power trucks get to the gas pumps to fill up for the next day’s work. I’ve heard people on the radio who’ve said that they waited in line for hours for gas, got up to the front, and had the gas station close for curfew. They literally slept in their car until the next morning when the station opened and could sell gas again. Others are waiting in line for hours, only to have the station run out of gas, so they’ve moved from station to station until they could finally fill up. Survival, even in this city where a lot is still operational, is very hard work.
Ripples are far-reaching. My friend’s father died yesterday as he was bringing her a generator. He had a flat tire and got out to change it, and died in the heat of a massive heart attack. Not directly related to the hurricane, but still so tragic.
So that’s where we are. I’m taking lots of mental notes for my Restoration Series. Funny how God so often lets me experience the things I’m writing about. When I originally wrote Broken Wings, about an airline crash, I was in a plane that had serious problems and had to make an emergency landing. When I was writing Season of Blessing, about breast cancer, I had my own breast cancer scare. Now I’m writing about a global power outage, and I’m living through one of my own. It’s a real adventure. But in all of this I can tell you that God is everywhere, working in so many ways. And He’s strengthening my faith and the faith of so many others, showing us how spoiled we are, and teaching us to be dependent on him. His provision is amazing. I know we’re seeing terrible things on television, but there are millions of stories of God’s miracles that aren’t being told, just like they were in the Twin Towers.
Please keep praying for those poor people watching footage on television of their devastated lives. We have much to be thankful for, and are not praying for our power to return. It’s all in God’s timing and within His sovereignty, and whatever He chooses for us is fine. Instead, we pray that we’ll be faithful through it all.
Blessings to you—
