Battening Down the Hatches

 

 

 

 

So, it begins.

 

The rains started early this morning, before the alarm woke me.  Until around 2:30 PM, EST (US), the weather wasn't anything unusual for this time of year.  We frequently have windy rainstorms in early- to mid-autumn, and this morning seemed like any other late October, early November weather system.

 

I left work about half an hour earlier than normal, to try to beat the winds that were forecast to begin around three this afternoon.  As I made my way across the back yard of the Weaver House (our office), the winds kicked up with a sudden force that nearly knocked me over.  It sucked the lift out of my umbrella and threatened to turn it inside out.  The ribs buckled and snapped, the canopy twirled like a top.  As heavy as I am, it felt as if I were being pulled skyward for a brief moment.  Mary Poppins flashed through my mind.  All I needed was Dick Van Dyke - and some cartoon penguins - and I'd've burst into song.

 

(If it weren't for my fantasy life, I'd have no life at all.)

 

When I arrived home, I could hear the sump pump running, trying to empty the basement of rainwater that had seeped in from every crack in the foundation it could find.  I know what I'm going to be doing for the next several hours.  I just ask the Universe to see to it that the power doesn't go out.  If it does, the sump pump won't run and the basement will become a swimming pool for all the spiders that live down there.  (No, Joe, I'm not going to make paper funnels to rescue them.  If they can't swim, too bad.)

 

In-landers sometimes seem (to me) to be Nervous Nellies about hurricanes.  Keep in mind, though, that I lived in New Orleans, where if Bubba Brown up the street flushed his toilet one time too often, the mayor called for emergency evacuations, that's how far below the sea level we were.  However, Pennsylvanians have survived some pretty nasty storms that even Crescent City folk would have to respect. 

 

Forecasters are suggesting that Sandy could well be as bad as Agnes, back in June of 1972.  I was with my first-Ex-Beloved and toddler daughter in California when Agnes came a-callin' on my in-laws, who were quite a few feet above sea level in beautiful Adams County.  The wind-driven rains and heavy downpours flooded basements and cellars in most of the homes there, not to mention heavy-duty property damage.  When my second ex-beloved and I bought the house I now call home, we were told how high the basement was flooded after Agnes.  That's when the sump pump was put in, and the furnace lifted from the floor onto a new concrete pad.  In fact, the entire floor to the basement was poured at that time, with a ten-degree slope laid in to facilitate the draining into the sump.

 

I am confident (I hope not overly so) that this storm will not be that bad, but I have been preparing for it, nonetheless.  In case power goes out, I have prepared some foods that require little, if any, refrigeration - boiled eggs, salads, fresh fruit and nuts for snacking - that sort of thing, nothing elaborate.  I've made a pot of coffee and some iced tea for the thermoses, and have filled a few clean water bottles.  There are fresh batteries in the five flashlights strategically placed around the house.  I brought out extra blankets to wrap up in, in case the furnace stops working.  Laundry has been washed and put away, so I have lots (!) of socks in case my toes get cold.

 

My biggest concern is the dead/dying sassafras at the side of the house.  Every time we have an 'ordinary' wind storm come through, at least two or three more branches break off, though not all of them hit the ground.  There is a slew of widow-makers hanging menacingly from the remaining limbs, draped like Snoopy-the-Vulture, in waiting for their next victims.  The deductible on my homeowners insurance is more than I can handle right now, so I'm hoping not to wake up in the morning with part of the Squirrel Highway across my bed.

 

A year ago, I'd have been freaking out about the dire possibilities this storm might bring, but having survived the year, my personal tour through the Ante-Chambers of Hell, I'm shrugging it off.

 

Either I've gotten better, or I am so deep in denial that even those ocean-trench-dwelling fishes with their own lanterns would be reluctant to visit me.

 

Whichever, I hope to be back reading your blogs before too long.

 

May the Universe look after all those in Sandy's way, as well as those of you who aren't.