Sandy

It sounds like we’ll be meeting a not-so-lovely storm named Sandy over the next couple of days.

I’m not sure how worried I’m supposed to be about this.

Part of me is in the holy-crap-do-we-have-what-we-need camp. And another part of me is in the I-bet-this-won’t-be-nearly-as-bad-as-they-say camp. Because you know, the weather guys (and gals) don’t exactly have a track record of being 100% correct about these things.

For those who are directly on or closer to the coast, this is all very much more predictable (I think, anyway). Schools are cancelled, businesses are closed, mass transit is shut down. Everyone’s hunkering down. But for us, we are still getting up and heading into work tomorrow, despite being firmly in the RED/ACTION zone here:

The winds are expected to be a pretty big problem, so I guess my biggest concern is power outages. And downed tree limbs. We lost two pretty big limbs during two separate thunderstorms this past summer, and I don’t think the winds on those days were anything compared to what they’re predicting now. I have my fingers crossed for our trees, since we have a lot of them.

The power goes out at work ALL.OF.THE.TIME. Well, at least in the summer, when wind/heavy rain is often a factor. We must be on a weak portion of the power grid, because it’s actually quite comical. Any time it starts raining or the wind picks up, e-mails go out to all staff—”save often!” We’re sent home due to no power at least a couple of times per summer. So I’m pretty interested to see how we hold up tomorrow/Tuesday.

Back at home, I also have an inkling of concern about flooding in our basement. We don’t *think* our basement is prone to flooding, but we’ve only been here for a year, so who knows. Although the berber carpeting and wood paneling that are in the finished portion of our basement certainly look as though they have seen a couple of decades… so I’m guessing that if it has taken on water in the past, it has been a long time. Still, I’m ashamed to admit that the basement remains in a state of disarray—let’s just say it hasn’t been high on the priority list to organize it since we moved in—so there is a TON of stuff on the floor. I’m probably going to go down there and take a peek before bed tonight just to pick up some irreplaceable stuff off of the floor just in case.

Otherwise, all we’ve really done to prepare is to buy a car charger (finally) for our iPhones/iPad/iPod, buy a little bit of extra food, and move the deck furniture into the garage. If the power goes out, we will be gorging ourselves on the ridiculous amount of leftovers we currently have in our fridge before they go bad. And then we’ll be living the rest of the time on peanut butter sandwiches, crackers, and cereal.

I guess only time will tell how severely we will be hit and whether our day-to-day lives will be affected this week.

For all of you on the coast, and within the “danger zone”—Stay safe. Stay dry. Stay warm.