when it rains...

i don't know how much it's made the news elsewhere, but tuesday morning at 6:30 Memphis was hit by one of the worst storms it's seen...affecting me directly in that the building i had just moved into is now on the verge of collapsing (if it hasn't done so already...)

i woke up not long after 6:30 to the sound of breaking glass...my first thought was that someone was breaking into Keith's or someone else's car down on the street below so i looked out the window...first i noticed a large delivery truck to Jack's parked on the street and my next thought was the truck had hit a car or something, but then i noticed the huge storm that was happening outside...the glass that i was hearing was from the windows upstairs and the abandoned building across the street...Keith, Brad, and i (the only ones there at the time) all walked out into the hallway right about the same time...there wasn't a tornado or anything with a fancy name, it was "straight winds" they were just insanely strong...i heard something about winds over the river being upwards of or nearing 100mph...Keith and i were in the front room when a large piece of the roof across the street crashed through one of the windows...just a minute before i had been up by the window next to it moving one of Josh's keyboards out of the way...one of my amps was near the window so i moved it and some other stuff away from the rain/glass...it wasn't long after that that i heard water pouring inside the apartment...the front room was leaking badly...and it progressively got worse...at least it wasn't the part where the equipment was...it spread to Keith's room a little...Brad's room also started leaking pretty badly...the other rooms were dry, though...the broken window in the front caused a window in the back to blow out...no glass was inside, just scattered in the parking lot behind us...also, that parking lot used to have a booth by the entrance...that was completely torn off...

this is where the big trouble arose: at one point we heard this large booming noise and we felt the building shake...it was a little later before we pieced together what it was...there's a wall that separates our building and Easy Way next door and rises about 4 feet above our roof...it was knocked over and our roof was covered with a gigantic pile of bricks...i didn't see it with my own eyes, but Brad climbed the fire escape and took a picture with Josh's digital camera...it was hard to believe how bad it was...that impact also caused a few cracks in the walls of our rooms...also the leaking started getting much worse after this...later we broke up onto the third floor...obviously it was flooded...there were some holes in the roof...the rafters were apparently damaged pretty badly...we knew the roof wouldn't be able to take another storm...or prob'ly even normal rain...and there were reports of another storm to hit that night...and even if the building didn't collapse, if the fire marshall were to come by the building would be condemned and we wouldn't even be able to get back in to get our stuff out...

at one point not too long after the storm, a cop saw us in the window and told us to get out of there now...our power didn't go out, but we turned it off because of all the leaking...that's when i was really worried...sitting there outside...wondering if we'd be able to get back in at all...eventually we went back in...the others who lived there had all been notified and made their way over by this point...i'll also let it be known that when i woke up i had, at best, 2 hours of sleep...and i had taken night time cold medicine before i went to bed...that would kick in every once in a while...but i think my adrenaline did a good job of keeping me from noticing it for the most part...

my dad was supposed to have gone out of town that morning, but the airport had power problems or something and had cancelled all flights...i got him to come out with the suv to help me move all my stuff out...at one point it seemed there was a possibility we'd only have one hour to get anything out of the building...he finally made it in the early afternoon...Josh rented a storage space in the downtown area...and we're sharing it...i didn't think i'd have enough time to be travelling back and forth between there and Germantown...and looking back, i'm pretty sure i would not have...so that helped me a lot...almost all of my shit's there now...a few things i took to my parents' house on the last trip...but i packed in a huge hurry...just throwing shit together...i hope didn't damage anything...i don't think i did...but you never know...after i'm done here i'm going back over there...i didn't really have the time to sort anything, so my toothbrush and all that kind of crap is in there...i did manage to get all of my stuff out...band equipment too...(which was one of my priorities...)

i'm staying at my parents' now...they didn't have any power tuesday, but it came on again yesterday morning...MLGW's offices were damaged by the storm so they're saying it might be a week before power is restored to the places without...but i think Germantown's separate from them...and there's a LOT of this city without power (trees were knocked down all over the place too)...most of my friends are without...there are traffic lights all over the place that are out...as i said, we got power back yesterday and before that our phone line was working, but after the power came back our phone's been messed up...i'm up at the university right now...

i'm sure there's more i had to say, but it's hard thinking of everything...at least none of us were hurt...and i think everyone at least got their important stuff...i don't know if Brad got his drums out...i hope he did...blah...i think the 6 of us are going to try to find another big place together...i hadn't seen much of Sam or Jeremiah as they hadn't moved in a lot yet, but the other morning we uh, had some time to "hang out"...they seem pretty cool at any rate...it was really the first time i had talked to Jeremiah at all...it pisses me off 'cuz that place was so damned cool...and i was getting so used to living there...it felt like home...maybe we'll find something even cooler...that would be nice, we'll see what happens...but Keith went back yesterday with Shade and when he got in his room, he saw the ceiling was caving in and there was a huge piece of it on the floor...they immediately got the fuck out of there...he said there's no way we'll be able to get back in there...not safe at all...

one more note about the storm...it fucked my car up a little bit...my trunk's been fucked-up for over a year now but it was damaged even more...the bungi cord holding it down was snapped by the wind and it was pushed up against the back windshield even more...it doesn't close as well as it did now...(which wasn't very well anyway)...i tied it down again...but it makes me very very nervous that the trunk rests on the window...also, one of the small windows in the back (not the regular passenger window, but the really small one next to it) was busted out...i'm currently pulling the ol' garbage bag taping it shut trick...i guess now i need to get that shit fixed...oh well...