Not being on campus for the entire school year, the only thing I did that is related to Penn State was taking Zoom classes, and there were not really any memorable moments from the classes. However, something did happen during the first semester that was an experience to say the least.

One of the “fun” things about living in the southeast is the storms that will occasionally show up from spring to fall. I have been through two or three hurricanes during my three years in Atlanta, and I will definitely remember the most recent one.

The last October, Hurricane Zeta made landfall in the southern United States, causing deaths and damage in several states across the country. My family heard about the incoming storm a few days before it came, but we were not too worried because it was supposed to weaken to a tropical storm, and we expected at most a few hours of power outage. The storm was supposed to come at around 4 a.m., and we went to bed not concerned about it.

I was woken by the sound of heavy rainfall and thunder at around 4:30 a.m. I got up and looked out the window to see whether power had gone out or not, and I saw the streetlight on, so I quickly checked the weather before returning to my bed. Before I could fall asleep again, I heard the HVAC unit shut off, and sure enough, the power was out. I sent a text to my mother telling her not to open the fridge the next morning just in case power was not back yet and tried to go to sleep one more time. When I almost fell asleep, I heard a thud and some faint rustling outside the window. I quickly got out of bed and opened the blinds, and I saw something huge and dark in the front yard. It took a bit for my eyes to adjust to the complete darkness caused by the power outage, and as I expected, there was a big tree lying across the entire front yard. I could vaguely see that the tree barely missed the cars on the driveway, and since there was nothing I could do, I was finally able to go back to sleep.

The alarm clock I set before my first class in the morning was the next thing that woke me up. I was hoping that power would be back by then, but it was not back. “A free day!”, I thought, as my laptop did not have much charge left and even cellular data was pretty much unusable probably because everyone was trying to use it. With daylight, I was finally able to see what had happened.

The culprit.

The culprit.

It turns out that the neighbor’s tree in their front yard had fallen sideways, taking out the neighbor’s power lines and rested entirely on my front yard, blocking the driveway. I was surprised that that particular tree fell down, as it stood straight and looked healthy. The tree was at least 25 feet long, and luckily, the tree did not fell on either house, which would have been much more serious. However, the two cars did not come out unscathed. Although all windows were still intact, which was great because the rain would have turned the interior into a mess, there were a dozen dents total on the two cars. Thankfully, we had just shopped some groceries in preparation for the storm, so the blocked driveway did not bother us. Power came back around 11 p.m., just enough time for me to finish an assignment due that day.

Fortunately, my stepfather does construction and knows workers in the area that could get rid of the tree with him. They worked on the tree the next day, cutting the tree into logs. It took them a day and a half to cut the entire tree into smaller chunks, and since getting rid of this much wood could be a bit pricey, my stepfather posted on Facebook about the free wood that we had. I was surprised by how fast people came to pick up the wood, and by night time, nearly all of the wood was gone.

While I have been through other hurricanes, Hurricane Zeta was the first to cause more than just a power outage for me, and it certainly spiced up the remote learning experience. Everyone should take mother nature seriously and prepare accordingly, as unexpected things can happen during inclement weather and cause inconveniences or even harm to you.