Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

I was just like most of your for most of last week. No power, no phone, no internet, no way to go anywhere.

Since I live on the East Brewton side of Murder Creek, I was pretty much locked down for a little while, and so were a bunch of other people.

With few options, about 10,000 people (or so it seemed) waited in line for a cold drink, a hot cup of coffee, a candy bar, or, if you were lucky, one of those beautifully wicked things rolling along the “meal of surprises” wheel near the registers.

The workers were obviously flooded with first-time customers. Although I have been to the store on occasion, I will say it was my first time trying a cup of coffee from that fine establishment. Apparently, you can get a personalized cup of coffee where the beans aren’t ground until you press the button. Who knew?

And, yes, I did have a “mystery” tornado from the wheel. I got lucky Thursday morning and found a couple that had sausage, egg and cheese inside. Perfect with that cup of coffee for a breakfast for folks who didn’t have electricity at home.

I know that many people endured much worse than I had to during such a worrisome time.

I didn’t have any trees laying on my house. Several people in our community can’t say that.

I didn’t have to worry about going hungry since I did have some food at my house that didn’t require preparation, but some folks didn’t have that luxury.

I didn’t have to worry about running out of gas for the generator, but some people were in desperate need of fuel to help in their efforts of saving their freezer full of summer-gathered vegetables or keeping the air conditioning going for people who can’t take the heat.

As a community, we were lucky.

I haven’t heard of any injuries or deaths related to the storm that blew through here last Wednesday morning.

I have seen homes damaged and yards filled with debris from falling limbs and things that washed up in the flood.

I have seen businesses who empty their offices on Tuesday and were working diligently on Friday and Saturday to put things back together. One business in East Brewton, Piggly Wiggly, (but it will always be Big Bear) will be working to put things back together for a few more back-breaking, sweat-dripping days.

With all the inconveniences from running out of bread and milk, to missing Wheel or Fortune and checking emails, I hope that you can see just how lucky our community was to have relatively little to overcome in the wake of Sally’s visit. It could have been so much worse.