As most of you know, the north east coast of the US
is about to ‘welcome’ hurricane Sandy, which has been devastating the Caribbean
islands for the past few days!
Sandy has been charmingly nicknamed Frankenstorm as
it’s due to arrive just in time for Halloween…I guess, sadly, the parade will
have to be postponed this year! Luckily, though, most people got to enjoy their
Halloween parties last night before the mayhem starts!
With the arrival of Sandy we've been told to expect
70m winds, heavy flooding and some power failure for the next three days and
all the news site are sending out lists to help people prepare for it and
businesses have already told their employees not to come in tomorrow. The
subways are now closed and their air vents are being shut in to prevent flood
damage.
After last year’s overblown Irene, it makes you
wonder whether we are not all just overreacting but I guess it’s always better
to be safe than sorry!
So, in order to prepare for Sandy/Frankenstorm, my
friend and I (yes, I’m husband-less during this chaos as J is
experiencing his own little disaster as he is ‘buried’ under 1.5m of snow in a
house in the French Alps due to an unannounced snow storm! And some people
still don’t believe in climate change, honestly!) set out to the store to pick
up on some necessary items, like water, candles and canned food. The store,
close to my house, is usually quite empty, you bump into your neighbors on
occasion but it’s pretty nice and calm. Today though, a totally different
picture as the queue to the registers went all the way to the vegetable section
- you have to pass the bread, meat, deli, dairy, fish, and beer sections before
getting there, just to give you an idea of how long that queue was! Everybody
was rushing to get all the essentials before they were sold out but everybody
seemed calm and collected.
Surviving in Timor-Leste with no electricity was
tough but it wasn't a problem because our cooking stove ran on gas and we had
plenty of flashlights and canned goods, not to mention a generator when the
darkness just got too much…here though, everything in your house revolves
around electricity, even the water supply so it’s actually harder to prepare
for a power outage in the city!
As we were coming back to the apartment, laden with
all our shopping bags full of water, crackers, popcorn (why not!?), cheese,
cans and what not, a cop was just behind us eager to enter our building…I asked
him what was wrong and he calmly told us we would have to evacuate!!!! So
that’s about the time I started freaking out!
Apparently our building, since it faces the East
River is in Zone A for evacuation…Now, spending the next three days cooped up
at a friends’ house is not my idea of weathering the storm in style, as much as
I do love my friends! So, I started checking with my neighbors to see if they
were evacuating. My next door neighbors are Dutch and they have a 15 month old
and another one on the way. They assured me that they would not be evacuating
and that if I needed anything they were happy to help…
Well, if they are staying with a toddler in the
house, I don’t see why I should have to leave the comfort of my house,
especially after all the food I had just bought. Turns out about half the
building is sticking around and the building next to ours and closer to the
waterfront still has a lot of lights on as well. So we started weighing the
odds (we are on the 5th floor after all) and doing our utmost to prepare,
including mask taping our windows in case they break, and now we’re patiently
waiting for the proverbial shit to hit the fan.
Cop cars keeping coming around announcing on
megaphone that we have to leave by 7pm and that if we refuse to evacuate
we could be charged with a class B misdemeanor…It’s 7:28 as we speak and I've just made cheese scones and T is preparing dinner - I guess we’re staying!
So Frankenstorm, do your worst, I’m ready! Well,
not literally please, let it be just like Irene and give us only very strong
rain…at least my pantry will be full ;)
Right, I’m
off to fill my bathtub with water…
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