Lala is back to being officially a hurricane. It appears it’s sliding just south of the island but, as you can see, the whole island is well within the storm’s effect zone. At least we’re not getting hurricane-force winds.
We’re nonetheless getting a lot of wind and rain (15” for this storm; 9” since midnight). On the compound, a tree limb speared the cover on the backup-backup generator but doesn’t appear to have damaged the generator itself:
A large tree limb fell down on the pasture eFence. When I went out to service the generator, I ended up having to slog up the hill, de-activate the fence, move the branch, support the smashed section of fence with a PVC pipe, then re-energize the fence. The sheep are hiding deep in the jungle, so they didn’t escape.
The road down to the highway has multiple small- and medium-size trees which have fallen and are resting on the telephone/internet fiber lines that service the mountain. At least one is blocking the road. Phone, cellular, and internet service are down for much of the neighborhood. I understand a lot of places, including the local hospital, are without power. Where the roads aren’t blocked, they are thick with debris and rivers of water. The Department of Water Supply has warned that they’re having trouble maintaining pumping due to lack of power, so we might well lose water soon. Fortunately, we have backup catchment water.
We’re getting by with our off-grid solar+generator power and our backup satellite internet, supplemented by our local GMRS radio network and our LoRa mesh network.
It’s much too nasty to start the work of clearing the downed trees and getting the roads open. We’ll probably continue to be under heavy storm conditions until past midnight. So far, though, no reports of significant damage or injuries. We might just get off pretty easy.
—2p