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Crack, Sizzle, Pop!

After listening to our church tape this morning, we picked up Katie and her three kids, and headed off to Puyo pools. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we wanted to enjoy the slides and waves. They only run the wave pools or the slides at one time, so after the first set of waves was over, we headed to the slides. Well, the wouldn't open the slides because of the nearby thunderstorm which has snuck up. OK, so let's get something to drink and eat. Nope, can't do that either, 'cause they have some large group they are serving. Dustin and I figured that was enough, and headed home on the bus. Ellyn and the others stayed longer, and were later rewarded with the wave pool starting up again.

At home, Dustin and I were playing an Xbox game together. There was some thunderstorm activity going on, but by my reckoning, it was more than a mile away. Sometime around 2 PM, lightning hit a power pole right next to the Nate Saint School. Immediately we knew something was wrong, as after the strike we heard a loud buzzing sound. I sprinted from the house to see a bright light and smoke at the top of the pole. Immediately I ran back in and yelled to Dustin to unplug everything. Turns out that three power lines were down on the ground, right across the school driveway, and the power was out on the MAF base and some neighboring homes. To make a somewhat long story a shorter one, we were big losers today. We lost two TV/VCR units, a portable CD player, stereo, and DVD player. All plugged into the same two outlets, none of them on a surge suppressor. My Bad!! Thankfully our computers weren't damaged.

The power is still out tonight, and I am writing this to the hum of the diesel generator which is powering the base and the hangar. We are without water, as the three-phase pump doesn't work with the generator. Tomorrow I'll work on connecting the water system at the Grant's house to our base system. Then we will be able to use the two-phase pump at their house to supply water to the base. I don't hole out a lot of hope that the power company will fix the problem tomorrow, and it will be a long day if we don't have water. A couple guys from the power company stopped by at 5 PM, and now they are aware of the problem. But, he said they have bigger emergencies to take care of.