Katrina Aftermath in Mobile

An uprooted tree within the compound of our apartment crashed onto the gate. Though Mobile was not as devastated as New Orleans or Biloxi, Katrina did give the residents here a scare. We are thankful that we are back in Singapore when Katrina hit but for those Singaporeans who were still in Mobile, it was a wild gust of wind and thunderstorm on the night of Monday, Aug 29th. It was reported that the wind speed were 80 mph or 130 kmph. We returned to Mobile on the evening of September the 4th. And as our plane were moving over Texas and into Alabama, the change in the clouds and weather was significant. The sky from Dallas Fortworth Airport was clear and the clouds looked like little white shrubs sporadically scattered across the clear Dallas sky. But it was not so as the plane entered Mobile. It was as if the plane was moving into a kingdom of clouds... it was mountainous huge of swirly white and greyish clouds. It was like "kepulan kabu-kabu putih dan kelabu yang menggunung". When the plane entered the clouds, we could just see misty white stuff outside and as the plane was lowering its altitude, there was turbulent. It was pretty scary as we couldn't see much outside. There was slight rain too. When we drove back to our apartment, we could see fallen trees and damage billboards. As some traffic lights had been blown away, there was a police officer to help navigate traffic at affected road junctions. The pawn shop just outside our apartment had its roof blown away and the three gas stations at the junction were closed. We found out later that gasoline is a scarce commodity now and there is a cap of $20 for every pump. There was also a state of curfew in our area. Except for those who are working, everyone else has to be home from dusk till dawn (ie. 6pm) until further notice. Public schools in Mobile County are closed until September 12 so Afzal will be home until then. As I am writing this, the news from tv reported that the next hurricane - Hurricane Maria (of all name) is lurking in the Bermuda but the good news is Maria will not be heading towards land. However, they are taking caution to tropical storm Nate that is moving towards Florida again. It is definitely a Hurricane Depression in this region.

My neighbour Ida and the rest who were here during Katrina were without electricity for 2 and half days. This meant they were hot, in total darkness at night (except for some burning candles), fridge could not store food and they cannot use the stove or make hot water. Though they had water, it was noted that water had to be boiled in certain parts of Mobile. So for precautionary sake, they bought water from the supermarket during the first few days. Ming, a Thai housewife of one of my husband's colleague came to the rescue when she managed to collect some woods and make fire to warm food the first day after the hurricane. It's really survival at this time. Later on, the families bought themselves a barbecue grill and had to rely on grill food for that 2.5 days before electricity was restored. The halal store across the street were without electricity for 4 days and his frozen foods had to be thrown away. Business is really down. Even for Walmart in which we saw many foods not being stock up including their own plastic bags.

For Ida, it was definitely an event that she did not want to experience. For us, we are just thankful to God that we were back home in Singapore during that time. We hope that for the rest of our stay here, God will continue to protect us and the families who are seeking rezeki far away from home.

Some news of Hurricane Katrina in Mobile.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/30/katrina.alabama/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/08/29/mobile/index.html