A new day April 21

Greetings,

Today was a new experience. This afternoon we were under a thunderstorm warning for Jackson County. We have a NOAA weather radio in the office and of course the warning came through on it. There was to be large hail, winds, heavy rain as it moved easterly and was to hit Gautier about 4 pm. It was already storming in Gulfport where my supervisor is and they were getting heavy rain. She called me to call my crews in and to go to a dry place. I was to unplug my printer and laptops and put into my trailer which would be dry. In heavy rain the huts get wet as it comes in the seams, etc. 1/2 mile south of the village there used to be a water world park which was destroyed in Katrina except for the building. Arrangements have been made that we can evacuate the village to that building which is large, heated or air conditioned and indoor bathrooms. In March the village did go there twice and it is very nice. The man owning it has fixed it up and is planning a RV Resort on the property. So I followed all the directives and we went over there. But I could tell the storm was passing us to the north. We did get a some rain and many huts had water in them but nothing else developed. The ladies who went shopping for dinner were told to stay at Walmart which they did so dinner was a little late. A couple guys got the big mop bucket and started moping up water in all the huts. I only have 16 people here tonite. Sat about 30 from 2 groups arrive.

One group of 5 is from Peachtree, GA and several of them had been here twice before. This is the 5th group from that church. Every so many weeks they send a group. But they do notice small improvements from their previous trip.

So we came back and I thought "how am I going to plug all my electronics back in" as I haven't really done that before. But I did it and they all work. I was very pleased with myself. But tonite as I write this, there is some lightning and thunder again. The watch ended at 9 pm and it is about 10 pm. So we'll see if we get more rain. It hasn't rained here since Feb 24 and they are in a drought.

Phyllis