Preparing for Irene

Two months into living in our new house, and we get to prepare for a hurricane.

Hurricanes are fairly rare in our neck of the woods.   Usually by the time they get to us, they're down-graded to a "Tropical Storm".   Our last real hurricane was "Bob", which hit our area in 1991.   Before that was "Gloria" in 1985.   Luckily for us, we get them only once every 10 years or so. 

Hurricane Irene is expected to hit us tomorrow.  So today will be a day of preparation.   Mostly moving things that are outside, inside.   When we were living in our condo, we didn't even think about any of that stuff.   Now we do.

So our canoe and accessories go in the shed, as will our grill - after we finish our BBQ today with Hubby's family.   Yup - good timing.   A BBQ with a dozen people on the eve of the hurricane.   Could've been worse....we could have scheduled it for tomorrow.

We also  have a bunch of lawn chairs, hanging plants, wind-chimes, etc, etc that will come in just to be safe.  No need for projectiles flying everywhere. 

We'll make sure we have plenty of candles....our flashlight will be ready.  We have no idea if our house is prone to electrical outages or not.   We do live fairly close to the center of town and very close to a fire station....so perhaps we'll be lucky enough to have power restored quickly if it does go out.

And finally, we'll keep an eye on our basement.   With 10" of rain predicted, we stand a decent chance of getting water in the basement.   We knew about it when we bought the house.   We were told they'd only had water during the Great Mother's Day Floods of 2006.      We have a wet-vac.....as long as we don't lose power.

Good luck to all those in Irene's path.   I'll be the crazy lady outside taking photos of the wind, rain and chaos.