Hurricane Irene

Ed Buckner was worried, and constantly checked the local weather coverage. I went to Acme (local grocery store) for shrimp boil. I had fresh shrimp in the fridge that would go bad, and Irene or not, I was not going to waste them. The whole house seemed to be nervous. I mean, literally, the house. Lights flickered, windows shook, the front door flew open. And the people in it were nervous, too! We gathered candles, flashlights, pillows and blankets and declared it a "Family Slumber Party" in the den. After the delicious shrimp boil, of course.



Buckner spent the evening pacing, and asking us when the hurricane would get here. "One hour?" No. "Two?" No. "Three hours?? When? When will it get here??" For the upteenth time, Jack, it will probably be in the middle of the night when we're all asleep. And that's when she came, winds around 40 mph, rain pounding the house, and taking out the power. We woke up sprawled across each other on the den floor to no electricity, and no running water!! We moved out of the apartment and into this house around the first of June - it's 104 years old - a story for another post of course. The water is well water so no electricity means the pump doesn't work.

Ugh. Irene didn't do as much damage as suspected, but it was by no means a-ok. The house didn't flood (always a good thing) like it did the week before during the rain/thunder storms. But we did have several trees down on our driveway, and of course, no power.




Now yes, of course we had anticipated this kind of damage and had plenty of bottled water. But it just wears thin after several hours of it, and then when the electric company (PECO hereinafter) tells you it could be....get ready....FIVE DAYS TO TWO WEEKS before they have your power up again, you KIND OF START TO PANIC!!!! To their credit, PECO was "underpromising and overdelivering," but we didn't know that then. Naturally the boys were the first to use the toilet, leaving us girls with "no flush," unless we - no, I - was going to pour bottled water in the tank. Irene left behind sunny skies with warm, sticky air. As you know from my last post, Mother Nature is not my BFF, and that is why the Good Lord knew to bring me into this world well after air-conditioning had been perfected.

Dan had chosen this particular weekend to not shave for the past three days. I can, in the 17 years we've been together, count on one hand the times he's ever gone that long without shaving. He was starting to look like Grizzly Adams. I, of course, looked as radiant as ever...

We started looking for a hotel for the evening, and quickly found a room a few miles away. It took NO TIME AT ALL to put some things together, along with a cooler full of food and drinks. When Dan booked it, the representative told him it that the suite had a mini-kitchen, complete with a small stove, a fridge, and the kitchen basics, so, based on what PECO told us, I had packed...and I quote... mayonnaise, mustard, ketchup, pickles, sandwich bread, hoagie bread, croissant rolls, a head of lettuce, deli ham and deli turkey, American, provolone, and cheddar cheese, a jar of sliced pickles, plastic silverware, paper plates, styrofoam cups, sodas, juice, milk, juice boxes, ground beef, two boxes of hamburger helper, three containers of microwavable mac-n-cheese, several apples, a bunch of bananas, a six-pack of individual plastic servings of applesauce, an industrial-sized bag of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, a box of Ziploc gallon-size bags, saran wrap, and a small bottle of dishwashing liquid. We had spent the last week "stocking up." We also included in our luggage three or four large Maglite flashlights, and no less than 45 pounds of batteries in varying sizes. We were all sooo excited. By this time, we were all sticky and miserable, and talked about how low we'd crank the a/c! We pull up to the hotel, and Dan jumps out to go check in. Something is amiss here...why are the doors propped open...and it's DARK INSIDE. Ahhh yes, they neglected to mention this little detail on the phone. THEY DON'T HAVE POWER EITHER! Call me crazy, but don't you think that might a little detail we might have been interested in?? "Yes, please, one room for tonight...Oh, you are totally out of power? No air? Great! We'll take the whole west wing!!"

Soooo we coax the sticky people back in the Suburban and Dan and I get on our phones to look for another hotel. Thank the sweet Lord above we find one, and the we practically all explode out of the Suburban and into the hotel...air conditioning set at 65...this is H E A V E N!!! Running water?!?! We've hit the JACK. POT. Buuuut no "mini-kitchen," so naturally we ate out of the vending machines.

Honestly, all the people know is that Mom and Dad took them to a hotel with an indoor swimming pool. They were rather disappointed when we told them after school that day that the power had been restored and we would be going...shocker!!...HOME.

Over the next several days, all the local businesses regained power, everyone was back in school as scheduled. Over the next few days, everyone you encountered inquired as to how you fared during Irene. Everyone's story was different but with similar overtones of stocking up on food, bottled water, gas, and batteries. Those of us who lost power and spent the night(s) in hotel sympathized appropriately with each other, and eventually praised PECO for their fast actions. Apparently it was as much a shock to the natives up here as it was to us. Now we just wait for the next natural disaster, for which we are surely prepared!!