How sweet of everyone! I'm sorry I didn't check in here. The devastation around Jacksonville is unbelievable. I feel very blessed that we were about a mile south of the damage. So many of my friends have sustained damage. One friend has lost her house. There is much coverage on the news about it hitting Jacksonville State University (where my husband is a professor) but so little coverage has been given to the residential section to the west of the University which was demolished. It is simply unbelievable that only one person was injured and none were killed. Because they have been restoring power, water and gas to the area, today is the first day they are allowing volunteers in to help with the cleanup. I am going this afternoon to my friend's house to help her recover and pack whatever we can find left in the house. We are a town of around 10,000 residents so not very big. We are just thankful it was spring break for the students so that most of them were off campus.
Right now I am waging a war on Facebook in various venues on behalf of one of my employees who is a student at JSU. She lived next to campus in an apartment complex and was not home when the storm hit. She has a cat, Charlie, and her roommate's cat, Felix, who are still in the apartment, but they are not allowing them to enter to get their cats. so they've been in there almost a week now without additional food or water. The apartment above theirs was demolished (3rd floor) but theirs appears to be intact based on drone footage. They keep being told that they apartment is not structurally sound for them to go in and get the cats!!! I'm trying to raise outrage - which seems to be helping some. At least the City sent in the Animal Control and some firemen to the apartments to recover animals yesterday, but yet they said they still couldn't get to her apartment because of debris. I hate thinking of those cats without food or water, and being abandoned. Please keep them in your prayers that someone will be bold enough or able to get into that apartment today and find those cats.