Hurricane Irene

Timeline of the past couple of days

Friday
4pm- Leave work to let out the dogs. Change settings on fridge, freezer and basement freezer to the coldest setting possible. Head to the store to buy more processed food than I have bought in a while (Ramen, Easy Mac and Cheese, Whole Wheat Pasta, Pasta sauce, granola bars, etc). Can’t bring myself to buy canned fruit, so I buy bananas and apples as they don’t need refrigeration. Cringe when I pick up a 24-pack of bottled water. The store was VERY busy but people were not freaking out. Water was almost gone. Chuckled when I saw people stocking up on beer.

6pm- CP arrives home with a 30 pack of Coors (eww). He laughs at my store purchases, but little did he know….

Saturday
8am- Heavy rain starts to come down. The rest of the day it is either pouring or not raining; there is no in between. During one of the breaks of rain CP and I decide to take the dogs for a walk for some exercise so that they don’t go stir crazy. Of course it starts pouring a few minutes into our walk. Afterwards, we moved everything that could potentially fly away during a hurricane in to the garage.

11am- We decide to download the first 10 episodes of Game of Thrones on HBO for a lazy day inside. While they are downloading we head to Best Buy to buy a new receiver for the downstairs tv. We drop the car off for an oil change, use a Groupon for lunch and head home to set up the receiver. I fill up tons of water bottles and continue to make ice in the freezer.

7pm- Pick veggies from our garden in case Irene rips up the plants. That night we make a dinner full of garden delights: Caprese salad with our cherry tomatoes and basil with fresh mozzarella cheese (deemed my favorite meal out of our garden so far), Creamed Swiss chard (similar to Creamed Spinach), Beets with butter, dill and chives and then whole wheat pasta with homemade pesto. CP makes a tomato sauce out of the Roma tomatoes we picked for the next day. We shower in case we aren’t able to the next day and head to the basement to watch Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, I charge my Nook and both of our cell phones just in case.

12am- The couple glasses of wine have gone right to my head so I go to bed. I fill up the bathtub just in case we lose water. I turn on the news and hear that a tornado warning is in effect for SW CT. I head back down to the basement and tell CP we are all sleeping there that night.

Sunday
6am- Wake up with the dogs to take them out and feed them. We still have power and it is just a lot of rain/wind. Turn on the news and watch for a while. Play Words with Friends. Check Facebook to make sure friends down south are okay.

9:28am- Directv signal is having problems; the lights flicker and everything goes out. Bye bye power. :-(

9:30am- We head upstairs to use natural light and play Cribbage by our living room window. Notice people walking around in the neighborhood and a few cars driving around. Idiots. Wind is REALLY starting to get strong.

10am- OH MY GOD. There was a big gust of wind, CP saw wires in front of our house arch, there was a huge flash of light and suddenly there is a HUGE tree in the street. It took out a telephone pole and we now have LIVE WIRES across our front yard and driveway! YIKES.

Holy crap!

Tree took down a telephone pole



Tree is almost as wide as the height of our neighbor's Jeep!




Broken telephone pole

Live wires laying across our driveway

View from our house

See our next door neighbors outside and call to them to make sure they are okay. They are so lucky that their house and/or cars weren’t affected. I call our electric company to let them know.

10:30am- Fire department shows up to string up caution tape and close off our section of the street. A few of us take pictures. The fire department warns us that the wires are still live so to stay very far away from them. After the fire department tells us that it will probably be at least three days until we get power back, we invite our next door neighbors over to our house in case another tree decides to fall down and break open the fridge. Cheese, crackers, beer, etc. are all consumed. We move perishables from the fridge/freezer to a cooler (thank goodness I stocked up on ice). I joke with CP that he shouldn’t have made fun of me buying food because now we are going to need it!

1pm- Rain mostly subsides and people start to come out of their houses. Our street is a spectacle- people are taking pictures, pointing, etc. We start to joke that we should charge admission. Meanwhile we meet neighbors we have never seen before and everyone talks about their experience. We hope that power will come back on soon because we are so close to an elementary school and middle school. We check our garden and although plants have definitely been through a storm, everything survived!

Windswept leeks

5pm- CP notices water bubbling up our neighbor’s driveway…and then we notice it in our driveway. The water department is called and it is confirmed- we have a water main break. I run inside to take a shower in case the water gets shut off.

5:30pm- Because there isn’t any damage being caused by the break, the water guys promise not to turn off our water. They have to wait to do any work until the tree/electric company fixes everything anyway.

7pm- Thankfully we have a gas stove so we are able to heat up leftovers from the previous night’s dinner. We play cribbage with flashlights before retiring to bed. I finish my book with my Nook and a reading light. Thank goodness it is nice and cool that night because otherwise falling asleep would have been difficult without fans/air conditioning.

Monday
6am- After letting the dogs out and feeding them, I call into work to find out that we only have a delayed opening. I call my boss to let her know that I can’t work from home because I don’t have any power and I can’t drive into work because I have live wires blocking my driveway. CP and I decide to walk into town with the dogs to get breakfast and get the dogs some exercise. Afterwards we do yard work and I take a nap.

10am- CP and I start to discuss getting a rental car so that we can get to work this week and run errands. I suggest seeing how wide our cars are versus an opening in our side yard between the telephone pole and our shrubs. We can just barely squeeeeze the cars through, but both of them make it. WIN! We head off to find a generator, but to no avail. Thankfully REI still has headlamps (as we couldn’t find our camping ones on Friday night) and this cool lantern that needs no electricity to run (just a hand crank).

5pm: Heat up water on the stove so that we can do dishes.

7pm- Our friends agree to take the contents of our basement freezer (35+ pounds of homemade sausage, what is left of our beef CSA, homemade chicken stock/beef stock, kefta and meat pies) and store them in their currently empty garage freezer. We transferred them over just in time!

Tuesday
7am- Into work we go! I shower at work so that we can keep any hot water in the tank for CP to shower with. A neighbor texts me that the crews are working our street right now, but they have to replace four damaged telephone poles, remove the tree, string new wire, etc. so I am hoping for power by the time we get home tonight, but won’t be surprised if they are just cleaning the street up.

Ahhhh Hurricane Irene. I’m glad that you didn’t destroy our house and cars, but you have been quite a pain.

How did you guys do in the hurricane?