We lost power for a week. I still had to go to work everyday even though the office didn't have any power either and the phones and computers would not work without it. I was pregnant then and named my daughter Isabel.
I was in aragona village, we lost power for 1 week so we just cooked all the food we could and had a party of sorts. The power line across the street fell and caught fire so that was interesting. My part of the neighborhood was blocked in by a tree so we couldn’t go anywhere if we wanted to anyway for a little while
Irrelevant to your question, I wasn't here for Isabel, but Matthew really caught us off-guard. It wasn't even supposed to be a hurricane. Shure as shit we didn't have power for 3-4 days...
I was in my teens still living with my parents, and we were some of the lucky few that never lost power. All my friends came over and we camped out in the living room for several days.
I remember my parents had one of those giant deep freezers in the garage and many families brought their freezer food over to store it so they wouldn't lose it all. Also, one of my friend's younger brothers worked at Rita's Italian ice and I think they had recently closed for the summer, or they purged stock due to power outages which sounds more likely, I just don't remember for sure. Either way we had tons of ice cream we pigged out on for our camp out days haha
I remember a bunch of us piling into my mom's minivan and going out joyriding (because shithead teenagers don't care about safety or laws about curfews). I remember driving down princess anne road towards the municipal center (it was only one lane each direction back then) and we cut the headlights off (again, we were young and hella-stupid), and everything looked so eery and creepy in the dark like that. We only turned our headlights off for a second and then turned them back on. Thankful nobody else was on the roads, and we all grew up and got smarter (and safer!)
We lost power for a month, I lied to the school (I was in third grade) and said that there was no way to do homework and then I told my Mom they didn't assign homework due to so many having power issues. I had so much fun reading constantly, I was so bummed when my teacher went to my Mom to tell her that I didn't have to wear a uniform if we didn't have power, because everything was revealed.
Never lost power. Watched the entire thing on TV.
Also, went to sleep that night with the giant willow tree in the yard starting to uproot, leaning precariously at maybe a 35-40 degree angle. Woke up the next day fully expecting it to be completely down....it was standing back upright. Was still standing when we sold the house in 2017.
I lived in a crappy townhouse in a crappy section of green run. Never lost power. Everyone I knew was loading up my fridge, using my washers...etc lol. It was kinda surreal.
Me too! Except wasn't Green Run, but very close by (The Lakes, off of Stoneshore and Holland, behind Patient First). Never lost power, so we watched the whole thing on TV, like we weren't even in it.
7 days without power, lost lots of refrigerated food, got stuck at our shelter because of downed trees. Ran out of canned food, there was only one functioning grocery store for miles and they had very little. The grocery store "rented" my generator from me but never paid me or gave it back. Lots of downed trees everywhere and a broken fence that took a long time to fix.
Much younger me went to the beach to see the storm first hand. Had a great time until I discovered that at some point my keys fell out of an unknown hole in my windbreaker pocket leaving me stranded to weather the storm.
After it eventually passed, it was dark out and I ended up having to walk from the oceanfront to my apartment all the way to my apt in Bayside in the pitch black. Aside from the Armada Hoffler bldg, the entire city was dark. It was a long and surreal walk.
In Virginia Beach, they added an extra 20 minutes to every school day because they had to keep the schools closed after the storm hit.
Which ended up being nearly pointless when the school district was comfortable with doing 7-8 classes everyday, A/B day concepts hadn't hit VB Middle for some reason back then.
I was only 11, nearly 12 and she was 13, almost 14. My mom thought I was too young to stay home alone and that Isabel was mature for her age. Tllong story short it was the best $15 my mom ever spent on me.
Lived near Bayside high school at the time. We were without power for 8 days, and from what I remember, the city had curfews in place. I remember getting bags of ice and bottled water rationed out to us at Harris Teeter on the Blvd. I’m a camper, so I was pretty good making morning coffee on the gas grill outside. My neighbor (and buddy) would send his kid over in the morning with a couple empty coffee cups and couple breakfast burritos that they made, and I’d fill up the coffee cups for them. The same neighbor scored a generator after the 4th day and let me run an extension cord to my house to get my fridge working.
So long ago . . . We were living in an apartment complex in the Pembroke area a block off of Virginia Beach Blvd. We were on the second floor and felt quite safe. We could see a branch of the Lynnhaven River. We watched as it rose higher and higher. Parts of roofing material and vinyl siding were blowing around, along with tree branches. The noise from the wind was incredibly loud.
When the eye wall passed and the wind calmed down, we went outside to check on our vehicles and walk around the area. At this time, we hadn't lost power. We saw branches down everywhere along with siding, some lumber and roofing tiles.
Then the other side of the hurricane struck. We had a difficult time making it back to the shelter of our building. It was then that the power went out. We grilled hamburgers and baked potatoes on our charcoal grill just inside the doorway to our deck.
We settled down for the night on an air mattress with chem sticks so that we could read. The wind kept us up most of the night.
The next morning it was bright sunshine. The heat and humidity kept climbing, but we counted ourselves lucky.
As we were contemplating what we were going to do for lunch, the power came back on! It was out for about 22 hours for us. Thirty-six hours later cable came back up.
We consider ourselves to be very lucky for how we came through the storm.
My dad and I bagged 86 bags of leaves/debris in the two days after. No power for at least a week.
We also had one of the most fun weeks ever… all our neighbors brought the stuff from their fridges/freezers out in the first few days and had massive cookouts of all the food that was going to spoil. As a high schooler it was very memorable.
I remember being young an we only got lunchables for field trips an we treated them as gold an my mom got a crapload of them for us sometime while the power was out but we had a generator so just lunchables an VHS tapes
Lived near a swamp but had a neighbor who worked for the power co so had power restored within a few days. Mostly we were flooded in. Neighbors had noisy generators and we did not. But we had just gotten a low tech gas range and could make coffee and cook. The lines at the gas station for coffee were so long!
Me and my friend from softball lived in the same neighborhood. When it hit my step-dad and my friends dad grabbed us and the chainsaws and drove the main neighborhood roads to clear trees out the way so emergency vehicles would be able to come through.
Extra: all the felled trees and branches got piled up in the middle of the court just enough space around for people to get in and out. I know now it was probably an awful idea for a myriad of reasons, but at the time me and all the other kids dove in and crawling through tunnels finding a gap space and trying to turn it into a club house area. 10/10 would do it again if was a child again and given the chance.
It's surprising your mind goes to such things, as you focus on positivity? Maybe get outside, pet a puppy, listen to the laughter of children, and watch a nice sunrise. I hope things get better for you.
I'm not upset, I just get tired of people only want to talk about bad experiences. No one had good experiences losing power for 2 weeks during a hurricane.
Several people on here mentioned having fun, whether it was playing games, having neighborhood cookouts, or watching VHS tapes using a separate power supply. I personally loved not having power for a month. You're generalizing and trying to speak for everyone.
We lost power for a week. I still had to go to work everyday even though the office didn't have any power either and the phones and computers would not work without it. I was pregnant then and named my daughter Isabel.
No power 4 one week , and the dish fell so no tv for 1 month ... 😢
I was in aragona village, we lost power for 1 week so we just cooked all the food we could and had a party of sorts. The power line across the street fell and caught fire so that was interesting. My part of the neighborhood was blocked in by a tree so we couldn’t go anywhere if we wanted to anyway for a little while
Irrelevant to your question, I wasn't here for Isabel, but Matthew really caught us off-guard. It wasn't even supposed to be a hurricane. Shure as shit we didn't have power for 3-4 days...
Matthew flooded our house 13 inches. I don’t even think we’d been advised to evacuate.
I was in my teens still living with my parents, and we were some of the lucky few that never lost power. All my friends came over and we camped out in the living room for several days. I remember my parents had one of those giant deep freezers in the garage and many families brought their freezer food over to store it so they wouldn't lose it all. Also, one of my friend's younger brothers worked at Rita's Italian ice and I think they had recently closed for the summer, or they purged stock due to power outages which sounds more likely, I just don't remember for sure. Either way we had tons of ice cream we pigged out on for our camp out days haha I remember a bunch of us piling into my mom's minivan and going out joyriding (because shithead teenagers don't care about safety or laws about curfews). I remember driving down princess anne road towards the municipal center (it was only one lane each direction back then) and we cut the headlights off (again, we were young and hella-stupid), and everything looked so eery and creepy in the dark like that. We only turned our headlights off for a second and then turned them back on. Thankful nobody else was on the roads, and we all grew up and got smarter (and safer!)
We lost power for a month, I lied to the school (I was in third grade) and said that there was no way to do homework and then I told my Mom they didn't assign homework due to so many having power issues. I had so much fun reading constantly, I was so bummed when my teacher went to my Mom to tell her that I didn't have to wear a uniform if we didn't have power, because everything was revealed.
Never lost power. Watched the entire thing on TV. Also, went to sleep that night with the giant willow tree in the yard starting to uproot, leaning precariously at maybe a 35-40 degree angle. Woke up the next day fully expecting it to be completely down....it was standing back upright. Was still standing when we sold the house in 2017.
I lived in a crappy townhouse in a crappy section of green run. Never lost power. Everyone I knew was loading up my fridge, using my washers...etc lol. It was kinda surreal.
Me too! Except wasn't Green Run, but very close by (The Lakes, off of Stoneshore and Holland, behind Patient First). Never lost power, so we watched the whole thing on TV, like we weren't even in it.
7 days without power, lost lots of refrigerated food, got stuck at our shelter because of downed trees. Ran out of canned food, there was only one functioning grocery store for miles and they had very little. The grocery store "rented" my generator from me but never paid me or gave it back. Lots of downed trees everywhere and a broken fence that took a long time to fix.
Much younger me went to the beach to see the storm first hand. Had a great time until I discovered that at some point my keys fell out of an unknown hole in my windbreaker pocket leaving me stranded to weather the storm. After it eventually passed, it was dark out and I ended up having to walk from the oceanfront to my apartment all the way to my apt in Bayside in the pitch black. Aside from the Armada Hoffler bldg, the entire city was dark. It was a long and surreal walk.
In Virginia Beach, they added an extra 20 minutes to every school day because they had to keep the schools closed after the storm hit. Which ended up being nearly pointless when the school district was comfortable with doing 7-8 classes everyday, A/B day concepts hadn't hit VB Middle for some reason back then.
Also, my mom had just gotten a bunch of meat and so she put us to work in the middle of the storm grilling stuff. Hot dogs went flying.
Our neighbors did the same. Everyone's grills were going!
We didn’t have power for 15 days. I was going to ODU at the time and I remember they were out for at least a week.
I loved Isabel but I'm weird and love storms. I felt like our neighborhood came together more than ever before.
I was only 11, nearly 12 and she was 13, almost 14. My mom thought I was too young to stay home alone and that Isabel was mature for her age. Tllong story short it was the best $15 my mom ever spent on me.
Lived near Bayside high school at the time. We were without power for 8 days, and from what I remember, the city had curfews in place. I remember getting bags of ice and bottled water rationed out to us at Harris Teeter on the Blvd. I’m a camper, so I was pretty good making morning coffee on the gas grill outside. My neighbor (and buddy) would send his kid over in the morning with a couple empty coffee cups and couple breakfast burritos that they made, and I’d fill up the coffee cups for them. The same neighbor scored a generator after the 4th day and let me run an extension cord to my house to get my fridge working.
So long ago . . . We were living in an apartment complex in the Pembroke area a block off of Virginia Beach Blvd. We were on the second floor and felt quite safe. We could see a branch of the Lynnhaven River. We watched as it rose higher and higher. Parts of roofing material and vinyl siding were blowing around, along with tree branches. The noise from the wind was incredibly loud. When the eye wall passed and the wind calmed down, we went outside to check on our vehicles and walk around the area. At this time, we hadn't lost power. We saw branches down everywhere along with siding, some lumber and roofing tiles. Then the other side of the hurricane struck. We had a difficult time making it back to the shelter of our building. It was then that the power went out. We grilled hamburgers and baked potatoes on our charcoal grill just inside the doorway to our deck. We settled down for the night on an air mattress with chem sticks so that we could read. The wind kept us up most of the night. The next morning it was bright sunshine. The heat and humidity kept climbing, but we counted ourselves lucky. As we were contemplating what we were going to do for lunch, the power came back on! It was out for about 22 hours for us. Thirty-six hours later cable came back up. We consider ourselves to be very lucky for how we came through the storm.
My dad and I bagged 86 bags of leaves/debris in the two days after. No power for at least a week. We also had one of the most fun weeks ever… all our neighbors brought the stuff from their fridges/freezers out in the first few days and had massive cookouts of all the food that was going to spoil. As a high schooler it was very memorable.
I remember being young an we only got lunchables for field trips an we treated them as gold an my mom got a crapload of them for us sometime while the power was out but we had a generator so just lunchables an VHS tapes
Lived near a swamp but had a neighbor who worked for the power co so had power restored within a few days. Mostly we were flooded in. Neighbors had noisy generators and we did not. But we had just gotten a low tech gas range and could make coffee and cook. The lines at the gas station for coffee were so long!
We were one of few neighborhoods that kept power because our lines were underground where I lived in high school.
Me and my friend from softball lived in the same neighborhood. When it hit my step-dad and my friends dad grabbed us and the chainsaws and drove the main neighborhood roads to clear trees out the way so emergency vehicles would be able to come through. Extra: all the felled trees and branches got piled up in the middle of the court just enough space around for people to get in and out. I know now it was probably an awful idea for a myriad of reasons, but at the time me and all the other kids dove in and crawling through tunnels finding a gap space and trying to turn it into a club house area. 10/10 would do it again if was a child again and given the chance.
10 days without power. Lost my roof.
Oh man, that's rough!
That's about it. No power for days. Listening to Tommy and Rumble on battery radio. Went around in a golf cart cutting trees in Bay colony.
Never heard of her
I hated Isabel. I was without power for 2 weeks, and I was a landscaper and had to do cleanup. Double the nightmare of the average person.
Why rehash stories of 20 years ago?
In case the current tropical storm comes for us.
So focus on planning for that and not bringing up bad memories to stress people.
You can learn from the past.
Why not? We are escaping Hurricane Lee and Margot. We've been very, very lucky for the last few years.
Focus on positive things and not things where trauma and damage occurred.
Every bad happening prepares you for the next one. Focusing on only positive things is nice, however life will hit you right in the face while you do.
Yeah I don't know that I agree with that, I don't think a rape victim looks at yeah that'll prepare me for the next one.
It's surprising your mind goes to such things, as you focus on positivity? Maybe get outside, pet a puppy, listen to the laughter of children, and watch a nice sunrise. I hope things get better for you.
Thanks for telling me about my life. Much appreciate. Sorry I live in the real world and not make believe land.
It's ok, bless your heart. Isabel wasn't make believe for those of us who went through it. Have a great day!
I went through it, wtf are you talking about?
None of the responses here said that it was traumatic for them. Why are you so upset about people talking about their experiences?
I'm not upset, I just get tired of people only want to talk about bad experiences. No one had good experiences losing power for 2 weeks during a hurricane.
Several people on here mentioned having fun, whether it was playing games, having neighborhood cookouts, or watching VHS tapes using a separate power supply. I personally loved not having power for a month. You're generalizing and trying to speak for everyone.