Goodnight, Irene

So here’s how the whole Madame Irene thing went down in Casa de Jenster Saturday night. We had wind and rain and rain and wind and then we found out there was a tornado warning in our area so Katie and I decided to take advantage of the basement. After all, we lived near Tornado Alley for all those years without a basement or a storm shelter. Now that we have a basement it just seemed the prudent thing to do.

At 11:20-ish Saturday night we got all comfy downstairs and turned on the TV to watch Saturday Night Live. But SNL never came on because the news people felt it necessary to tell us there was a hurricane with wind and rain in our area over and over, ad nauseum. By that time we were seeing all the damage that had happened down south and hearing about all the power outages and we were prepared for the worst.

Canned food – check
Chips/cookies – check
Bottled water – check
Cases of soda – check
Flashlights – check

My biggest concern was how I would make coffee if we lost power. Seriously! How would I have made coffee if we lost power?? But we did’t lose power. Our basement didn’t flood. We didn’t lose any trees or branches or shutters or anything at all.

Here’s what I can’t figure out, though. Katie “called” the futon on the way down and I said I’d take the love seat. So here’s this little girl (I know she’s nearly 17, but she’s little in stature), comfortably sprawled out on the opened futon and then there I am, not so little, folded into the parameters of the love seat WITH THE DOG. Eventually Todd came down and he took the recliner. Doesn’t that seem all backwards to you?

Anyway, Irene hit around 2:00-ish, but we couldn’t hear the havoc she was wreaking from our safety of the basement. Sometime about 4:00 Todd sat up, said, “This is bull^#:%” (this from a man who doesn’t normally cuss) and went up to bed. I finally got up sometime around 7:00 after a night of very little sleep and went up to sleep in Taylor’s bed so I wouldn’t disturb Todd or hit his shoulder (he had shoulder surgery about 8 weeks ago) and finally fell into a deep sleep. At 11:30 I came downstairs to see Todd dozing in his chair and Katie sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal and reading. Third service starts at 11:30 and Katie looks at me and says, “I take it we’re not going to church this morning.” Ya think?

We turned on the news and that’s when we started seeing all the wide-spread flooding in our area and all the people around us with no power. This morning as I drove to work I found out the main road outside of our development is flooded so I had to get creative and find another route.

This area is peppered with creeks and stream and rivers so it’s no wonder we would have a lot of flooding after the torrential rains. Here’s a picture I “borrowed” from a friend of a friend and shows a big intersection not too far from here:

Last week was quite a ride for us east coasters. An earthquake, a hurricane, tornadoes and flooding. I’d ask what’s next but I don’t really want to jinx it.