Well, we have survived our first hurricane. And boy was it a doozy. I spent all week stocking up on non perishables and beefing up my 3 month supply. Saturday morning there was no milk to be found at any store on the East coast and so I did the unthinkable. I took my life in my hands and braved Wal-Mart -the day before a a hurricane. I know. You are impressed by my dedication to family, by my bravery in the face of danger. The mother bear instinct really kicked in, I’m tellin ya.

Our neighbors, city personnel and governor told us that power outages would be rampant and that our basement would probably flood. So, never having owned a basement before, we believed them and spent the whole day cleaning and organizing our basement and then moving it all up a foot or two off the ground to protect it from the onslaught of water and muck that might very well rush in when the sump pump stopped working. We involved the boys telling them we were going to have a Hurricane party! “Let’s get our basement prepared and then we’ll eat all our ice cream and make forts upstairs with all our empty boxes when the power goes out!”

And then we waited. And watched the news. And tracked the amazing white clouds of Irene wreaking havoc in states south of us knowing it was heading straight for us. This week was like waiting for Christmas to come. Every night; “Is the “Huwicane” coming tonight, Mommy?” “When is the power going to go out?” “When is the flood going to come in the basement?” “Is it going to fill our house?” By 8:00 PM it was raining and that was it, so we sent the kids to bed prepared to wake up to a massive storm the next day. We finally went to bed as well, exhausted from our preparations.

THIS is the incredible damage that we woke up to. Be advised, there is some graphic material in the following photos.



Irene’s mean fighting windy machine. One branch down.

Needless to say the kids were pretty bummed when as the morning progressed all they had to show for their first hurricane were a few leaves in the yard, no power outage and some puddles that were already disappearing. Reagan bitterly said, “I can’t believe the puddles are already gone!” After all our work emptying and prepping the basement it looked more like the hurricane hit inside the house instead of out.

I am very grateful our home wasn’t flooded or destroyed. I know thousands of people were not so lucky. But even I was a little bummed that my first hurricane was such a wimp by the time it got to us. After 7 days without power following the windstorm in Duvall, we felt like veterans who could weather anything Irene wanted to throw at us. We were ready! We were prepared! Oh well. Better safe than sorry I guess.

“Does this mean we aren’t going to have a hurricane party, Mom?”

”Yep, no hurricane party this time, kids. But maybe we can have one next time we get to have a hurricane!”