News from Florida...

Hiya. We just got internet access at the house. It's been three days of
absoulte grunt work cutting down trees (Banana, Mango and Grapefruit)
hacking apart aluminum Lanais frame(s) and living in powerless, hot, muggy
southeastern swampy Florida. There's been a strictly police enforced 8:00
curfew so we've been heading to bed early and getting up with the sunrise.

Today, about noon, the power came on. A couple hours later, we got cable
(and internet!) It looks (we didn't turn anything on) like the production
equipment is alright, but the church we had everything in is just trashed.
It looks like the roof was a sardine can, just peeled up, rolled and
thrown off the roof into the parking lot. Once we walked in you could just
smell all the mold that's quickly popped up into the dank shredded
interior.

We're finishing some minor cleanup and then wrapping up. We leave
tomorrow. I'm surprised at how much stuff is still here, Almost every other
house in the area survived intact, the boss' house seems to have taken the
brunt. There's no real good reason, I guess. Anyway, that's the scoop. I'm
anxious to get home, though I look forward to showing up when I'm not
entering a state of emergency area. Everyone we've met is just completely
shellshocked with the thought that Ivan might swing in.

I can hear Larry (the boss) calling everyone off to go grab dinner (and
beer!) so I should run, but I'll have more later.

off we go into the wild blue yonder...

Yesterday night I was convinced that I was going to be at our first
Refuse service on Tuesday night, but this afternoon I got a call from
Larry (one of the company heads) asking me to head down to Florida and
do grunt work. So, I fly out tomorrow and come back on Friday. We were
going to leave everything for a little while and come back to it, but
with Ivan potentially tracking into Florida, we didn't think that
would be a good idea. So, I'm going to miss the first service. I know
there'll be more, but I'm really bumming about this. Your prayers
would be appreciated.

Oh, we've also gotten reports that our studio equipment probably is
trashed. When someone at the church picked up one of our cameras,
water poured out. I guess it means we'll be able to get new equipment,
but it's frustrating.

Bri

Prayer request...

just talked to one of my coworkers. The conference we were going to be
putting on next Friday is off indefinitely. The roof of the church
we're connected with in West Palm Beach was completely ripped off and
the building's been condemmed. In addition, we've got at least
$100,000 worth of studio equipment in the building. Cameras,
switchers, production lights, monitors... oh well, thankfully it's
insured if it turns out to be completely destroyed (which is what I'm
guessing). My bosses house, while surviving, didn't completely stay in
one piece. The enclosure over their pool was ripped off, some of their
hurricane shutters were destroyed and they lost their grapefruit tree.
I don't know if any windows blew in yet.

This storm moved so slowly that it kept 100+ mile an hour winds in the
area for over 40 hours. I don't know whether I'm still going down
there next week, though I'd like to. I guess part of it's voyeuristic,
but I'd really like to be there to help. Who knows if that's going to
happen. More later as I find stuff out.