Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Why This Is Scary

All along the Eastern Seaboard, Hurricane Sandy is terrorizing people.  I've been looking at friends' pictures on Facebook, who live closer to the sea than I do, and I see people in inflatable rowboats, paddling down streets, Battery Park in Manhattan is underwater, the HMS Bounty sank in North Carolina, and at least one friend, in Philadelphia, is without power.

This is some seriously scary stuff going on.

Here in the Bing, we're still bathed in electric light.  The washer and dryer are chugging along, "just in case," but I have my fingers, toes, eyes, and hair crossed that even though the Weather.com page has us in the large red swath on the map with "likely power outages," that we'll beat the odds and keep our power. 

It's not that we're not ready if the power goes out.  We have a generator so we can keep the freezers going.  We have some gas for the generator.  I drew the Big Tub full of water earlier this morning, so we could flush if the power goes out (the pump has different voltage than the rest of the house, so the generator won't do a lick of good as far as water pumps go around here), and I filled bottles and jugs of water for drinking.  Zoe has enough packaged baby food to get her through a few days, and enough shelf-stable yogurt to get her through even more days.  I know how to use a chain saw now, if I have to.  This is as ready as I think we can be.

It's still scary.  I sit here in the house, thankful to hear the drone of the washing machine, and to see the glow of the lights, but the wind and rain are hitting the wrong side of the house.  In this area, the prevailing winds are usually from the west and south-west.  Today's windy fare comes from the north.  It's one of those things I never really think about until it's happening all wrong.

The storm prep is comforting, because at least that's something we can control.  We can go fill up gas tanks, and set food aside, and make sure we have first aid and toilet paper and hand sanitizer and water.  We can make sure the dishes and laundry are done up.  It's comforting to be busy.  It's the waiting that'll drive you nuts, and the wondering if or when the power goes out. 

It's all scary because there's nothing we can do about this Hurricane Sandy.  We can't hook up giant fans and send this bitch packing out to sea.  We can't turn on giant sump pumps and pump away storm surges.  We can't reason with her.  We can storm prep all we want, but in the end, we're powerless to stand by and watch the water rise and the winds blow.

I've said it before.  I'm a worrier.  It's what I do.  But on days like this when large swaths of the East are huddling in the wind and without power, when the wind and rain are hitting the wrong side of the house, I admit that there's something tremendously satisfying about getting through it unscathed and finding out I worried for nothing.  That's how I hope I feel on Friday, when all of this should be said and done and over, weather-wise.  That I worried for nothing.

1 comment:

  1. Glad to see that all is well with you!

    The waiting was driving me crazy, too. We had plenty of time to prep and I kept finding myself looking for something else to do. I just wanted to be on the other side, dealing with whatever blew into or out of our house.

    We went to bed with the words that "the worst was yet to come" even though things seemed to have settled down. Thankfully, there was nothing major bad around us and power was back less than a day and a half from when we lost it. Being able to go to Waffle House for breakfast yesterday was a good way to start the day, too.

    ReplyDelete