Being at the center of the storm was quite a thrill, to say the least,
although I've seen blizzards that were just as bad, or worse, although of
shorter duration and less widespread, and, if you went without power for a
week you died.  I'm writing from work as the home on northside Richmond is
still without juice - we haven't even had a tree removal crew, let alone
the power co. down our street yet!

My little dig at the Chesterfield Courthouse was delayed a day or two and
the open units got thoroughly drenched and turned into a quagmire, but
nothing was lost.  The tornadoes the day or so following dumped more rain
in half an hour than in the whole hurricane.  All in all the wet season has
made for excellent digging in the otherwise concrete-like clay and I think
that the wet ground allowed the heavy rains to soak in quicker (a damp
sponge soaks water up quicker than a dry one as the adhesion process is
already underway).  Our buildings and collections fared well although some
of our civil war sites got stomped bad and are closed awaiting FEMA
a$$i$tance for cleanup.  I suspect I'll be sent in to supervise removal of
massive 140 year old oaks from the earthworks. Word is that the NPS civil
war sites around Richmond and Petersburg were not so badly damaged and all
are open, which makes the relic hunters happy as they can go poke around
the upturned stumps for goodies.

My wife, Jen, works for the Virginia Museum Association but they are still
without power (office at the Museum of Fine Arts) and she has not yet
returned to work to hear how sites across the state fared.  She gets to sit
home and listen to the generators on either side of us roar like freight
trains (we have some power courtesy of a neighbor who works at Bank of
America) (thank you Bank of America!).

Being a good Yankee I collected lots of firewood, mostly cherry as no sane
person would trouble themselves burning oak.  My stints in archaeology have
hardened me to sustaining life with no hot water, no electricity, eating
out of a cooler and over a campfire, but I thought I had outgrown that
lifestyle!

         Dan W.



At 9/26/2003, you wrote:
>I was wondering how our collegues in VA and NC fared in the Hurricane.  I
>heard
>Jamestown NPS curation facility flooded but haven't heard from folks in
>Richmond and North Carolina.  In St. Mary's we lost a number of trees and some
>of our outside exhibits took a hit.  The collections and sites came through
>pretty good although power was out for a week in the lab.
>
>Silas Hurry
>Historic St. Mary's
>City
>
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