The lights just came back on after about 16 hours with no electricity. The flood waters were lapping at our door, but started to recede before we could get any damage inside. The family is all good and we are in the process of cleaning up etc. It's just fecking incredible how things can change from one minute to the next. I have been thru many storms, but this one was really scary. Being in the dark with the howling wind, pelting rain, and rising flood waters is really bad. I was up most of the night not able to sleep for fear of tornadoes and flash flooding. After the worst past around 4:30am I was dozing and suddenly the phone rang and it was the neighbours telling me that the water was coming up fast. I looked out and sure enough it was really rising fast. I woke everybody up and we started picking up all the stuff on my studio floor like VG-8's, recorders, guitars, computer cpu, 3 heavy Vox amps, power amps, wires for days. ARGH! I hate that. Anyways after I got most of the stuff up the sun was up and we took a break. This is when I snapped some pics (which I can email if you are interested). My friend Lt. Col. Cronnis called from down the street and urged me to call EMC to find out what was happening and why the pumps were not working and complain that we were about to go under. It's funny about 15 minutes later the water started to recede. I called him back just to gloat that I had real pull with the local govt and it took an old hippie to get them into action. Mikey and I tool a walk in the knee deep water about one mile up to the entrance to our sub division. There were a lot of people hanging out watching a crew build up the levee on the lake side of our neighbourhood. When we got TO the levee we could see the other side and that airline highway (those of you came to PazFest remember this highway that leads to the airport and the Interstate) was completely under about 4 feet of water. Some people told us that its that way for miles. Jack is in an uptown neighbourhood and was high and dry. He called as did many of you throughout the night and I appreciate all the concern and emails and stuff that lets me know that my extended family is right there. That's a great feeling. Love to you all and hope everyone else is fairing well.
Paz P.S. BTW. All the pre orders of PazFest were meant to go out yesterday in the post, but a trip to town turned out that the Post Office was closed. I did set up the PazFest display in Tower Records yesterday (which is SO COOL! and they gave me front and center placement right by the main check out counter) and left them their product. I promise they will all go out to you that have sent your checks in as soon as they reopen the city. XoXo
