Natural Disaster Attention floridians & surrounding areas: take irma seriously

[lostforgottensoul]

If Walgreens or Wawa or whatever store you mentioned has stuff, you could maybe looking into getting a cooling towel. They make them for animals or humans, whatever you can find. All it needs is water, then you can wrap it around his neck or maybe find a way to strap it to his belly. I'm sure the hard floors are helping a bunch.

I'm going to go to a pet store tomorrow to looking for a cooling mat for him. If I can't find it I will look for a cooling towel and put it around his neck like a bandana. Also will be getting ice at the Wawa as I am off tomorrow and Sun so will need to go charge devices again. Might as well try to find things that can help.

One of the teams I follow on youtube told me to take his bed away to force him to lay on the hard cool floor. Sadly I saw that too late but I did remove the blanket and wet down the bed a lot as well as wetting him down. I also tapped aluminam foil, shinny side out, on the tops of the windows of the livingroom. An after thought is I should have tapped it to the outside of the windows as inside the heat is already inside at the point but hopefully it helps to reduce heat from the evening sun.

Duke Energy now is showing where they are working on their outage map. Sadly it's not in my area but the area next to me (20 streets or so diagnoinally on a street map) but hopefully this means that at least by Sun we will have power. Hopefully sooner but hopefully ay least Sun!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

OMFG! Went back to look for hotels, found myself on the Expedia hotel site, found a hotel near my work place with one room left and like watching an auction, "just booked" happened on all of their rooms faster then I could press "book". It was 11 of us on there and boom, boom, boom their cheapest to most expensive was gone like that.

Chopper woke me up at 11pm. He can't get off the bed without me putting the foot rest down on my recliner which I do of course bur water wasn't enough. He was pacing and whining. I then got up to wet him down again which seemed to work but I don't know how much longer I can do this. Tomorrow and Sun off work but that also means camping out at the Wawa for hours on end charging which is insanely hard on the pain. It'd nice to be in the AC but come on!

Apparently Duke Energy is supposed to have a bunch of people up by 11:59pm tonight but I ain't holding my breath. Obviously I will need to stay awake to find out as I will want to shut all the windows and let the AC fill the house but I honestly have zero confidence in them. Especially since I called to report the outages Mon, Tue, Wed, Thurs and all of those days it was "we see you have already reported an outage, if you still want to receive text alerts...." "you are the 1st person to report this outage" when before it was 778. Come on! On top of it, they say to reset your breakers, and just to say I did, I did that and I have a wonkey breaker that doesn't like to come back on. I called Duke Energy back after hitting 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0... on their automated system and waited 20 mins but I just couldn't hold anymore. I didn't receive a text. So they what? Wiped out the 778 person outage when the service wasn't yet restored and are now off work because the sun is down? I am going to loose my mind. I am! I am about to go postal inside a Duke Energy place! They have got to he the worst power company on this planet!

ETA: Oh, and I just looked and our outage isn't on their outage map anymore. This is ridiculous!

ETA2: Ok, go going against all of my fears I started to knock on open doors and talk to those neighbors outside (whom are pretty fed up as me) asking them to re-report the outage and I ended up looping back to an opened front door of a neighbor I spoke to on his porch by accident and he ended up contacting a person some way (I'd like to know how he did that all in a matter of 5 mins) and apparently their automated system is having some failure of looping back over and they know about it and say by Sun midnight. Which is like their public announcement date. f*ck, Sun midnight get here already!

ETA3: Oh, speaking about my job though, they are offering me money for lodging and food and it's not a loan nor do I need to show receipts. She didnt know how much but I think its in the hundreds. Though if I can find a hotel that would help. I just need to find one first. But, at least they are doing something for employees affected. If this goes past Sun though I will need to call out and find a place to board both animals though I think. I'm not sure. Anyway, I think they are doing more for those that need more as she was specific on what I lost and what I need. At least they are helping in some way.

ETA4: And I can't play this hotel game. Book now, pay in full, I'm sorry we are full. I had 50 tabs open just trying to find ONE f*ckING ROOM! In the Orlando area. 20 mile radius. NOTHING! And I said f*ck it to the pet friendly ones as those aren't becoming avail and the cat isn't effected at all and Chopper can come with anyway legally as he is a Service dog in training. But f*ck! It's who can click faster and apparently that's not me. Ugh!

 

[hodge]

Say, I just had a crazy brainstorm. Are there any stores open near you that sell those little round plastic baby pools, you know, the ones you only have to fill up with water and they're only maybe 3-4 feet across? Since you said you have some hard floors, and if you could get like a 20-lb. bag of ice and a gallon or two of water, maybe you could put it in your house and fill it with ice before you go to work and it should still be cool by the time you get home? Or can you not get that stuff?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Chopper could hop in there and cool down?

Chopper fears water more then death itself. So much so that water (as in from brushing my teeth and wet grass and some drizzle) are common themes in our exposure therapy since he will need to work in the rain and overall wet splashy conditions. But, yeah, I think he would die before hoping into water. But it could serve as a cooler water option.

I want to make one of those handmade ACs you'd put by a dog crate in a car to maybe blow on us both when I am here and maybe be put on the floor where he would likely lay when I am not home. I did get the ok to get ice from work but not a baby pool size amount.

I thought maybe taking him to Lowes tomorrow and just seeing if they had a generator and pick up a few PVC pipes and some coolers. I am not sure how long ice would last but yeah, maybe.

I def want a cooling mat tomorrow and then Wawa will be a few hrs so tomorrow already sounds full. Sigh! I hear generators all around me and more and more being started amd just feel so enviness they know someone that would let them borrow one and I don't. A trainer said "I have a generator I didn't have to use" and I asked to borrow it. He thought I was kidding. I wasn't. But left it there. Sigh! I get generators are expensive but damn, I'll pay you full price for it today if that's what it takes! What happened to helping people out in hard times?

 

[hodge]

Aww, poor Chopper. Maybe after he gets that training he will like it. If so, it would be a good $10 investment for the future. Also, as you say, for a big drinking bowl. Lol, that's what my dog often used hers for. My office is the hottest room in our house. Even when the AC's been on for hours, I still sweat up here. It probably gets up well into the 90s. Probably not nearly as bad as your house, but I can fill a 16 oz. drinking glass full of ice in the late morning, after it's been heated up in here, and it's still cool into the night without adding more ice -- not cold, but cool enough if you didn't have more ice. So I was just kind of extrapolating.

Good luck with finding a cooling mat! That's undoubtedly the more civilized and advanced way to go :-). Or maybe order online with next-day delivery, since I seem to remember you mentioning you had seen a UPS or FexEx truck go by the other day?

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Or maybe order online with next-day delivery, since I seem to remember you mentioning you had seen a UPS or FexEx truck go by the other day?

Yep, I sure did but no next day deliveries here sadly. They are a week, at best, with Prime. They are all delayed here.

It probably gets up well into the 90s

Altho it feels like 90s, I haven't seen the temp on the AC temp thing go above 84. That's in the evening about 5pm when it's the hottest. It may go higher in the day but even on my days off that's the highest I saw. I think it's due to the hard floors. At night it seems much hotter inside then out and I think that's due to candles and maybe pint up heat. So I think I may only light one candle, put it away from the door and windows tomorrow night. Just placed my last set of batteries in the fan. Hopefully by being out and it not running all day I can conserve batteries or find some one place I plan to go (Walgreens is on that list and I cannot work Chopper too much so all of that will need to be split) or I will not have a fan tomorrow night. And then onward?

I honestly have not seen one Duke Energy truck. I cannot see how that company can work endlessly and still have power out this long. I get there were 3 transformers and that they can be of special kind, though most carry them on their trucks and if the poles are intact it would take a half a day putting one up. If the pole needs to be raised maybe a day but, ok 3, so that's at most 3 days and that's if one guy did them all. But an entire company? Ok, I get it, 1.2 millon customers out and many other factors play in but shouldn't I see at least 1 Duke Energy truck? On a site for outages one person said they went all over Altamonte looking for Duke Energy and saw, in total, 2 trucks in the entire city. They were supposely laying and waiting to be dispatched and supposely working through the hurricane to make sure we kept power and now this? Oh, and supposely there are crews from Canada helping. Well they are doing a piss pore job. Maybe they are only helping OUC and FP&L and the other Fl electric companies?

I know I should be grateful I still have a home and I am. I really am. I get it that it can really frustrate people to hear one person complaining when that person has it so much better then them. I do get that and I got that more and more as people were ripping me a new one about internet when I could careless about internet right now, I just need power.

But I am also disabled. I am super heat sensitive, on pain pills that make me hotter, pass out from the heat and camping out at the Wawa is just taking everything out of me. I was sitting on the couch just a bit ago in tears because I hurt so damn badly and have no idea how I am going to get to and from the Wawa just once let alone a few times.

I just don't get it. When there is this little damage and zero flooding, I just don't get it!

ETA: Oh, I forgot to say that I soaked him fully before bed like I was rising him in a barh and then moved the boxes that kept him from being able to get to the water without waking me. He likely will still wake me as he is used to doing that but I am trying to make access to water as easy for him as possible.

 

[hodge]

I've never been through what you're going through, @lostforgottensoul. In my book, you have every right to bitch as much as you need to. I just wish I could be of more help. I have gotten super heat sensitive, too, since developing fibromyalgia over the last several months. It is really awful. But it sounds like you know of pretty good strategies to get you and your furbabies through this, which I, as a lifelong northern midwesterner would never have thought of.

Know that we are all thinking of you and hoping this nightmare ends soon. Hug.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Thank you @hodge. You tend to think creative when you are forced to. I tore down the rest of my screen, put a baby gate in my front door and then tapped the screen to it as my cat can jump over the baby gate. So that I can have my front door open. I may open my paren't old room and open their window. I didn't as that room gets the sun the most, is the hottest even when air is on, and just has a small window but it's my only chance of a cross breeze. So, still thinking on that one

I've decided to go to Walmart first instead. I need a 2nd baby gate to put above the first one as taping the screen is temp. I have to tear it down to go anywhere so I can close and lock the door. That idea I got from neighbors. One had two baby gates on top of each other and one had built some sort of wood barrier. Either way, that's easy to take down when needed. No doubt the one with the two baby gates has a cat. If my cat really wanted to she could get on the furniture on the porch and get out as the screen is all torn up from earlier storms but I did see her thinking about jumping over so that's when I was like yeah, no.

Anyway, phone is about to die. I will see what Walmart has by the way of an electrical plug. They do have benches and if there are plugs there, that would be WAY easier for me as before I was just sitting on the floor at Wawa or a 2 inch high thing they put water on. It's VERY hard on pain.

So, about to get ready to go soon. Will update when I can.

ETA: Oh, I forgot to say that I am now putting wet towels on the floor. Especially on the area rug. So if he doesn't lay on the cool hard floor, he is forced to lay and walk over wet towel. It maybe increasing humidity but feel cool when I walk on it so I know it's helping him

 

[lostforgottensoul]

I got a 2nd baby gate so the front door is opened

I got 2 cooling towels. I couldn't tie it around Chopper's belly but it's tied about his neck. Barely but it's there. Putting wet towels on the floor was a good idea too. They're on my area rug so I should pick them up tonight but they are cool and Chopper laid on one on his side to cool off after I soaked him with water and now he is up on the leather couch and not even panting. He seems ok for now. Me, not so much.

I spent 4 hrs charging devices at Walmart. I bought the last portable charger and it's fully charged so hopefully we won't have to go back until tomorrow morning.

I forgot to say I also turned the brightness of my phone way down as well which is huge for conserving battery. I fogot to look for playing cards and things to do without power. Sigh! I can't go anywhere else right now. I hurt so very badly.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

The meat in my freezer was beyond rank and nasty. I threw that all out and cleaned it. Can't do the fridge today but at least all of that blood that was in the freezer won't refreeze like that.

I have a heat rash on my chest, back, and thighs and it hurts! I hate this so much!

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Oh my f*cking god! I finally saw a Duke Energy truck! In my apartment complex! He didn't stay long but I really hope this means we will be getting power today!

I ran down to see what he was doing (nothing) and a neighbor came out her front door also in disbelief. Everyone I have spoke to about this also has not seen a Duke Energy truck so everyone was coming out in complete disbelief. That says a lot!

 

[hodge]

Wow!! I hope this bodes well!!!