Two Years, Two Hurricanes

I love me some East Coast weather. Seriously. I have lived in Virginia for just a little over two years and have experienced a little bit of everything including an earthquake, a derecho, triple digit temperatures afte the sun went down, and now two hurricanes. (Well, everything except snow that is. My advanced degrees in meteorology steered me wrong in my winter predictions, but I'm still crossing my fingers for this winter to actually feel like winter, not like October in Wisconsin.)

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Anyways...the second hurricane. You know, Sandy. It was a little wind and rain. I'm drastically under-representing the amount of rain and wind by saying a little. We had 60+ mph winds for most of the afternoon/evening; and in total got about 6 inches of rain. There are lots of trees down, lots of flooding in areas around the Potomac River (including Old Town Alexandria), and hundreds of thousands of people without power. But for me, it was just a little wind and rain. My office was closed on Monday, so from about noon on I was hunkered down in my apartment working, reading, cleaning, cooking, and occasionally glancing out the window to make sure a loose tree branch hadn't smashed my car window. It was a long, boring day (I hate being cooped up like that), but I'm happy I had power the whole time. I know others were not as lucky.

I have a lot for respect for mother nature and the destruction it can cause. If you need a kind reminder, just take a look at some 2005 Katrina footage; it'll scare the shit out of you. I, however, do not have any respect for the media induced panic that surrounds storms. The panic really began on Friday when, before 10 am, my company sent out four all-staff e-mails warning people to take their laptops home with them in the event that the office was closed on Monday. By noon the storm was all anyone was talking about. The news coverage of the storm over the weekend was, I'm sure, meant to prepare people for what was coming. By Sunday afternoon I'm sure Target and Home Depot hit their flashlight and battery quota for the decade. The grocery stores were sold out of bottled water, and you couldn't find a C battery anywhere in town. Full on pre-storm panic was upon us.

But I refuse to live my life in fear of weather that may or may not happen. I decided to go about my normal grocery shopping routine, and if I lost power and the food went bad, well then that's life. I gathered my flashlights and candles in the event of a power outage, but went on living my life over the weekend as usual. I don't underestimate the power of storms, but I also don't live in fear of them. If a tree is going to fall on my car, there is literally nothing I can do to stop it. If a wind gust is going to knock out my power, there is literally nothing I can do about it. So why not relax and just wait it out. So that's what I did.

I appreciate all of my family and friends checking in on me. I can assure you that I was and am doing just fine. There are hundreds of thousands of people without power in my area, I'm lucky not to be one of them. The devastation of the coastal towns, and even of New York City, is shocking to say the least. And, as one friend pointed out, this was only a Category 1; I shutter at the thought of what 2, 3, 4,and 5 look like.

So, I survived hurricane #2. Looking forward to the next East Coast Disaster, because I'm sure there will be more. Working from home again today. Metro is still shut down, so the office is still closed. Back to work and normal life tomorrow.