Wind Turbine Fiasco

           February 13 was a very interesting day for me. It started off with me getting a text message from Garnet telling me that we had a two-hour delay. Just like most schools, we do get delays in Alaska, but the reason we had this delay was not because of snow. Actually, we had a wind chill of over negative forty degrees Fahrenheit! I won’t lie, but it was one cold morning. I went to school at my usual time, but I had one small issue of almost being blown away by the wind! Never in my life had I experienced winds as strong and cold as this one.

            Around 10:30A.M we finally got to start school. However, I was not used to how two-hour delays work here. Instead of creating a new schedule with reduced times, you just start teaching the class that would be in your classroom at that time. Pretty much, you lose your first two classes when you have a delay.

            As the day continued like any of my typical school days, with students asking me the weirdest questions. Instead of asking about my relationship status, the students want to know my middle name. (I swore to myself they will not find out until the last day of school.) But, this day was far from normal. In the middle of fifth hour, around 1:20P.M., an announcement came on the intercom saying all students are to be dismissed immediately. Now, this is something that was weird. My ninth grade students that I was teaching were all asking why are we getting out early. I just said that it was probably because of the wind and that it is so cold outside. But, I was completely wrong.

            After all my students left, I went down the elementary hall of the school since I am the only high school teacher that has a classroom located in the elementary hallway. I asked one of the elementary teachers what was going on, and she just told me to go to the office since we were all having an emergency meeting.

            At the office, I learned the real reason why we were dismissed. The one wind turbines was actually starting to melt in the blade and possibly will fall apart. If it fell apart in the way they were anticipating, the blades could possibly fly and crash into the school and the new teacher housing. It was scary hearing that we have to pack a small bag and leave our apartments and move to the old teacher housing until they could figure out what was going to happen to the blades of the wind turbine. Old teacher housing was the one place I have been dreading on ever having to live in since there is no running water or plumbing!

            The biggest problem of being in the old teacher housing was that the place we had to stay at had not been used in over a year, so the heat was completely shut off. This was not something that was fun. Luckily, one of the other teachers that live in old teacher housing with his wife and three children invited us to hang out at his place, so we can stay warm. After staying there about two hours, one of the teachers looked out the window and told us the top part of the wind turbine was gone. We all quickly looked out of the window to see that it was missing. We soon learned that the wind turbine just fell off and did not launch itself into the school or the new teaching housing. We were officially safe to move back home!

            But, the apartment I was living in wasn’t the best place for me to be. My unit and the unit next to mine (where Cori and Megan lived) started to have plumbing issues. The best way to describe this was that the sewage decided to back-up into my apartment and Cori and Megan’s apartment. What happened to put a wonderful thought into everyone’s minds was that the toilet would start making these weird sound effects and then would shoot the sewage up out of the toilet. Then it would go down the toilet and into my shower/tub. It was not a pretty sight to look at! Luckily Megan and Cori reassured me that this happens quite often in out units and that maintenance would be there shortly to fix it. However, the entire apartment stunk and it was late at night, so we all decided to stay at Garnet’s apartment, since hers was not affect by the sewage issue.

            Thursday, February 13 will be one day that I will probably not forget for a very long time. But, the start of an even worse weekend (probably the worst) will just be starting the next day.