Date: Thu, 25 Sep 2003 12:45:25 -0400 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: "Eugene J. Scarpulla" Subject: Alive and Well in Millers Island Comments: To: Beth Olsen , Bruce & Carla McElroy , Carol Ansell , Carolyn Chanoski , Carson Cornbrooks , Dan Hardesty , Danny Bystrak , Don Windler , Donn Redman , Donna Finnegan , dpoe_4@juno.com, Jack Reese , Jim & Denise Potyraj , Jim Berry , Jo Owen , "JoAnn (DeCola) Pace" , Joe Potyraj , Kathy/Ray Edwards , King Carter , Lori Peterson , marywilke2002@yahoo.com, Michele Monde , Mike & Beth Wilke , Randy Wilke , Ross Holtz , sandra spicer , Sharon Yingling , SNSCOLLINS@aol.com, Tamburo , franniebananie57@yahoo.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Greetings from Millers Island. Thanks to everyone that was concerned about me and my home in Millers Island during Hurricane Isabel. Many people have unsuccessfully attempted to contact me (no electric or phone service for awhile) or have made contact with my siblings. The short version is that I am fine, the house is reasonably fine, but some possessions were lost. (Since this note has also gone out to everyone on the MDOsprey list server, if you don't want to read the expanded version, please hit delete now.) I was working Thursday morning through Friday afternoon during the hurricane at the City of Baltimore's reservoir watersheds (Liberty, Loch Raven, and Prettyboy). We had lost electric at the office around 7:00 p.m. but had hooked up the phone system to a generator. The first indication that there was a problem was when my boss called me at 3:00 a.m. and informed me that an Ashburton Water Filtration Plant employee had heard that Millers Island was being evacuated. Around 10:00 a.m., I received two back-to-back phone calls telling me that news helicopters were flying over Millers Island showing the flooding. They said that the helicopter images were moving too fast to pick out my house. I immediately hooked up a television to three long extension cords that ran to the emergency generator in the maintenance shop. I waited anxiously as the helicopter showed images of Bowleys Quarters and started moving southward towards Millers Island. They showed Rocky Point County Park, then Back River. My community was next, but of course it was time for a commercial break. The commercial seemed endless. I pondered the fate of my house, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. The news finally returned and I immediately saw the cupola of my house. There were zodiacs traveling up and down my street rescuing residents. There appeared to be about 2 feet of water in the street. All I could do was take a long, deep sigh. On Saturday morning, the Baltimore County Police began allowing residents back into Millers Island. I had to show an ID to pass through the police roadblock. This was set up to keep sightseers and looters out of the area. The Salvation Army was handing out beverages and snacks. The American Red Cross was handing out disaster relief supply kits. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever be receiving assistance from either of these organizations. There was jetsam everywhere - railroad ties, sections of docks, tons of lumber, furniture, sheds, roofs, boats, jet skis. Propane companies were rounding up all of the displaced propane tanks. The Maryland Department of the Environment was looking for heating oil tanks. (My picnic table had floated across and down the street into a remnant of Black Marsh.) I drove to house. The entire yard was mud. I could see that the high water level had been about 30 inches around and inside the house. (A brief aside to bring everyone up to speed about my house: My house was designed after the Hoopers Strait Lighthouse in St. Michael's. It is octagonal and has four levels. The upper three living levels are above the 100-year floodplain. The bottom level, which is only 6.5 feet above sea level, is not used for living space. I had been using it primarily for storage.) There was no electric or phone service. Virtually everything on the bottom level of the house had been inundated with water. There was also Chesapeake Bay mud on the floor, walls, and everything else. On the bottom level I had boxes of stuff that I had been meaning to go through since I moved into the house four years ago. Prior to the flood, it would have probably taken me three weeks to go through each box and decide what papers and belongings to keep, sell, or throw out. The flood made the decisions more expedient. About 95% of what was down there was bagged and thrown out in two days. This included a large part of my birding records (all my Conowingo, Back River WWTP, Bahamas, and other records; almost all of my Ross's Gull and Atlantic Seabirds data; some records committee data) Luckily all of my Hart-Miller Island bird data was upstairs in my office. All told, I threw out about 75 large trash bags of papers, as well as a refrigerator, lawn mowers, leaf blower, weed whacker, and much assorted furniture. It has taken five days to clean most of the mud out of the bottom level. I currently have two, 2-gallon dehumidifiers running that I have to empty twice a day. The bottom level will eventually need to be repainted and I may need to rip out all the dry wall. I now have a completely empty bottom level. Any small possessions that I could salvage are currently on my deck and I will be individually washing them today to bring in before tonight's expected rain. (I did manage to save a photograph of me with Santa Claus when I was about one year old, and a copy of my mother's homemade Italian recipes.) Thanks to the various people that have helped me with the cleanup. Especially to Lori Peterson, my partner and soul mate, for her help and support, without which the flood recovery would have been a much more difficult task. Alive and well in Millers Island, Gene Gene Scarpulla Millers Island, Maryland ejscarp@comcast.net ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================