Fairhope, Alabama is a single tax colony with a lot of history and a bunch of ancient live-oaks, well...not so much now. Fairhope is filled with Fairhippians, they are not from Alabama or anywhere South of the Mason-Dixon line, but they do dress nice, live in McMansions, and drive golf carts while shopping in really expensive boutiques. I am wondering how they survived Sally on those $35.00 bottles of flavored olive oil from the Olive Branch? I have a small duplex in the Cedar Creek Community, just a handful of small houses lived in by working people and retired people. It is a very nice little community and we have bonfires every night, play music, cook out for the whole neighborhood regularly. We know Ms. Jan, the retired federal Marshall, goes to sleep early so we never keep the noise up after ten o'clock. She raises Monarch butterflies and grows milkweed to feed them. Tim, the neighborhood drunk and not be confused with Tim the estranged husband, lives in the othe rside of Ms. Jan's duplex. There are a handful of visitors that come pretty much every night to enjoy the food, music, and fire. We drink a lot and smoke a little weed but nobody gets out of hand. There is Rodney, the mayor. He owns a dirt pit and is very handy to have around. Chris is the local handyman fixer-upper. Patty is an Italian cougar in her seventies that tries to hang with the guys and watch football but she is a really good cook. Nancy just moved out the day before the storm into a nice new apartment, We pitched in and moved her in one day. Peggy is recently divorced and in full party mode but her house was totally destroyed by the storm and her estranged husband, who was staying there is now crashing on the floor of her duplex. Mary and Cathy, know collectively as "the Lesbians" moved in a few months back and joined the crowd. Robin and I are musicians and drinkers of Jack Daniel's fine whiskeys.Trish is sort of a divorced lush, Neal is the token black guy with a fat white wife and their little dog, Kyle. There is also a little old woman with spinal arthritis, Ms. Carol and a nurse named Susan, then there's Charlie, the local trivia champion and Bruce, the marine electrician. There are also several former residents of Cedar Creek that return to visit their old neighbors and friends pretty much daily. I knew Hurricane Sally was going to ride up Mobile Bay though I missed the prediction 5 mph short of a Cat-3. I tried to get the neighbors to shelter in my house on the other side of the Bay but by the time they realized it was serious, the bridges and tunnels were closed. I moved my vehicle and one other to the clearing near the road, knowing that there were no trees likely to fall on them. Nobody else bothered with that little task and by morning, were blocked in by fallen giant trees. Didn't matter much because all escape avenues were also blocked by downed power-lines and trees. We lost electricity about 10.30pm and it was restored after dinner was served Friday night, to much joy. Tim, the estranged husband of Peggy, walked in a couple of miles to report the loss of their home, no cell phones either. He had a chainsaw back at his truck so we were able to clear the immediate trees that had folks blocked in. Fairhope has been undergoing a major infrastructure upgrade that includes a lot of directional boring so Live oaks that have withstood storms for hundreds of years were toppled. Giant pines also came down, many twisted and broken at the trunk rather than uprooted. A Fairhippian golf cart driven by a very pretty lady wearing knee-high rubber boots and a mini-skirt and her two brothers with chainsaws steadily worked their way down Gayfer Road to Highway 98, clearing at least one lane of traffic. This was accomplished with help from the Cedar Creek crew and we were able to retrieve a couple of generators from Tim's destroyed house. The gennies let us run a few refrigerators and lights and that was a great comfort. Gasoline was a bit of a problem, as was ice, and staples. Power was down everywhere but the few businesses that ran on generators were swamped with traffic and hours long lines at the register. The entitled unprepared were extremely testy and several altercations were witnessed. Our community divided essential tasks, cooking on my camp stove and fish cooker, fetching ice and fuel, sanitation detail (critters abound), first aid for scrapes, cuts, etc. We began clearing trees from atop houses and patching holes in roofs. Firewood was mostly wooden pallets Charlie and I looted from parking lots. The first evening with a generator, we only had fuel for a few hours and soon discovered that although everyone had filled their vehicles prior to the storm, anti-siphoning devices really work. We eventually, by flashlight, removed the back seat of a Kia to access the fuel pump and filled a five gallon can. Shrimps were boiled, grills filled with meats from the thawing freezers, bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy all prepared on a propane fish-cooker, until I was able to cross the Bay and retrieve a few essential items that made feeding the horde more manageable. Dinner on Friday night was a feast and as soon as dinner was complete, the power was restored in Cedar Creek. I was impressed that Fairhippians with no preps were able to pull together and pool resources to help one another. As an aside, all of these people have began prepping and won't be caught again with no resources.
Troubled times bring neighbors together, and that's mostly a good thing with most neighbors. One quickly learns who is resourceful and can be depended upon, and who may be more of a burden with no initiative.
Yeah man,Dug the micro camera out of the woods,Fresh battery's installed,Moved it up to the front and you see a test shot... Dumbazz looters went in and lifted my Clint Eastwood and John Wayne dvd's,Stuff they really needed...b*$*#^ds !!!
My point to that diatribe wasn't really about survival under duress, but more about survival of "Community". This is sorely missing from our supposed "New Normal". Community has been under attack for decades, small farms, family, small businesses, they are all almost extinct. This was a very diverse crowd that prior to the storm, their biggest concern was ensuring the beer didn't get warm, yet they pulled together, shared tasks and optimized supplies, established new supply lines, and pulled together as a unit.
