Come On, Irene!

I'm pretty sure that even if you didn't live on the East Coast of the United States, you knew there was a Hurricane named Irene that was set to displace and affect millions of lives this past weekend.  It's all that was on local and national media outlets. The earthquake that rattled the eastern seaboard last Tuesday was a blip on the screen in comparison.  And I was sick of hearing about that within 2 hours of it occurring.  I was in my boss's office when we noticed the building moving. I was more amazed at how many people did NOT feel it, including many colleagues from my building.

Well, we were ready for Irene, and while we did take Irene seriously, we did not panic.  I picked up some groceries mid-week, just thinking ahead, and also stopped at the store Saturday morning to have a few extra days worth of items for Tommy.  And maybe a box of Entenmann's donuts that were gone in less than 36 hours. John secured all of our outdoor items in the garage or tied them to the deck mid-week as well.  Come Saturday, we were ready, and waiting. And waiting. And waiting.  Rain started in the afternoon, but the worst of the storm was not set to come to our area until sometime during the night. Here's how things looked Saturday afternoon at our house:

The calm before the storm

Empty deck with some heavy rain Saturday afternoon

John's fancy knot secures the grill...it held up nicely!

Tommy worked on some drinking games for the hurricane parties he kept hearing about

Last time I can recall this kid taking a THREE HOUR NAP at home was when he was about 3 weeks old! Apparently he did a lot more prep for the hurricane than we realized...this is post hurricane on Sunday afternoon.

Bottom line, we escaped Irene's visit unscathed.  We never lost power, which was amazing, because, as one of my Facebook friends joked - our town loses power when someone sneezes. We had a few drips of water going down our basement wall by a window that is under our deck where a puddle had formed. Otherwise, no flooding in our neighborhood at all. As for the storm itself, while the winds and rains were loud and noisy, we would have slept through the entire storm and night except that Tux vomited next to John's head and down by his feet in the middle of the night. Another Facebook friend who is very knowledgable about animals and hurricanes (she lives in Florida), told me that animals can get dizzy from hurricanes.  And my sister sent a text around 2:30 about possibly needing to evacuate due to tornado warnings, so that woke me up.

We live about 10 miles inland from the beach, and are on higher ground, thus we were not worried much about flooding. Well, we weren't worried about flooding in our immediate neighborhood.  But other parts of the shore as well as other areas around the state did not fare so well...one town's entire boardwalk is completely gone. Other towns were completely evacuated. The flooding by the Rutgers campus was awful and I could not go to work my regular route Monday, though I actually made it in on Monday no problem.  But then daycare called after losing power, and Tommy had to be picked up by noon. John picked him up and I came home, and thankfully Tommy did take a good nap and I think I may have been more productive working from home than I would have been at my office with the phones ringing and people coming in to our office...need a poster? Magnet? Schedule cards? T-shirt? I am also apparently working for RU Info but not getting paid because more people transfer calls to me even when they know I'm not the person who handles what the caller is looking for. Apparently I'm the most helpful RU employee on campus, and word has gotten around.  I had 3 calls last week alone that started with, "I was referred to you by so and so, and while she isn't sure you are the right person who handles this, she said you could tell me who was." While I get a lot of satisfaction out of helping others, I've decided that no one really has a clue what I do, and how busy I am this time of year, and especially at the start of the season, and then every game week. So it was nice to not have to deal with the calls and visitors for a few hours and actually get my work done!  I guess I owe Irene a thank you???

Tuesday the power was back on so off to daycare and work we went, though I had one of Tommy's teachers on standby to watch him at our house if the school was closed. I am so busy at work this week with the Rutgers Football opening game on Thursday night, and I'll be working late Wednesday night for a run through with our game day crew, band and cheerleaders, so I needed the back up plan in place just in case!

Power continues to be sporadic in some areas; at the grocery store tonight, which is right across the highway from daycare, the power went out again.  So I'm concerned what Wednesday will bring as far as daycare being open or closed. I am hoping it's open since it's the last day of  "camp" and the kids have an end of year party, plus we have a gift for Tommy's teacher since he will be officially transitioning up to the Cheerful Cherries on Thursday.  I so can't wait for Friday, when this first game will be behind me and I'm off, since daycare was scheduled to be closed that day for teacher training/in-service for the start of the school year.

Honestly, I really can't complain about my week as stressful as it's been.  I have colleagues who have flooded basements, no power, and they are still in the office this week because there isn't much that can be done right now. My biggest inconvenience was daycare being closed and it taking me 90 minutes to get to work today going an alternate route due to some road closures and lots more people on the roads today than yesterday!