18 August 2004. On this date, I finally was able to get on the Internet. MCI had brought a trailer to our community with free access to phones and computers. It was in the parking lot of a shopping center. I phoned my siblings to let them know I and my cat Shirley were all right, although without electricity, hot water (gas), phone service, tv. Then I posted to this blog. I described the damage to my house, which wasn't terrible. I was comfortable, by now having a tarp over the bad portion of the roof that kept me free of leaks. (Around ten days later the Army Corps of Engineers put a much larger tarp over my roof, free of charge.) The lack of air conditioning was the hardest to take, but really didn't greatly bother me. I think I missed my computer the most. I wasn't doing much, just slowly cleaning up the yard, reading a little, keeping in touch and trying to help out friends who needed help. We were getting free newspapers, and some friends still had cable tv, and most had radios (I didn't), so I was able to keep up with what was going on--and early on connect to FEMA, the government agency giving out grants to the needy.

I managed to delete what I originally posted here on this date, even though I had three copies of it, when added an introduction to it and gave it its proper number in my sequence of entries 6 October. Hence, the summary above. But Geof Huth happened to have a copy of it he'd e.mailed to mutual friends. I just got it from him, so can re-post it (I hope):

There. Good to know posterity will be able to read exactly what I said on the spot!