"Hurricane" Irene

Last week, when new of Hurricane Irene came in, I wasn't too worried. To be honest, I didn't give it a second thought. Hurricanes don't come up here - they're only down south! I worry about my friends down there and think my family in MD might get some extra rain, but that's the extent to my hurricane troubles. Well on Thursday, my boss (I work Saturday and Sunday at a nursing home in Coney Island...on the beach) texted to ask if I was still coming in. Still coming in? Of course! Why would I not? Her text intrigued me and I came online to see what was up. FULL BLOWN hurricane, they said.... The worst storm in 100 years..... It wasn't due to start til Sat night, so I figured I'd go to work Sat and forego Sunday. HA. I then saw on the news that Mayor Bloomberg was ordering a mandatory evacuation of all hospitals and nursing homes in coney island. Whaaaat? So the choice was made for me... no work for me if there weren't even going to be patients to treat! That definitely worried us financially, since I don't get paid when I don't work and I'm only working those two days a week.... but I realized there was nothing I could do about it and I'd just enjoy my time with the family.

The news sensationalized this storm like I've never seen before. It was INSANE how much they were hyping it up. The mayor evacuated part of the city and the MTA shut down all transportation. WOW. We started to worry that this was going to be big! We live in the northern part of Manhattan, so we weren't too worried... and we're not in a high rise. Yes, we live a few blocks from water, but we're relatively uphill. Still... we prepared. I filled containers with water and got out all of the flashlights and candles. We filled our tub with water (so we could flush the toilet) and I packed a bag with all of our important documents in a ziplock bag. Liam and I slept out in the living room since his crib is normally under a window. And then we waited.

The rain started coming down before I went to bed, but it wasn't terrible. I had visions of my windows blowing in, our car floating away, the roof collapsing.... At 3:30, I thought I heard a tornado (HA.. it was the air conditioner). When Liam woke up at 6, I checked all the weather reports online. It said that the storm was still in NJ and wouldn't be hitting us til about 2pm. Oh boy, I thought... a whole day of worry! I finally got back to sleep and then awoke again at 9 (NIIIIIICE.... I NEVER get to sleep til 9! Guess Eli was confused since it was dark out!) and turned on the weather reports. It was only drizzling... we started thinking that maybe it was the eye of the storm.... HA - it was OVER. done. finito. That was IT???

They started saying things like... Hurricane Irene... er...tropical storm Irene.... and I realized... it wasn't anywhere as bad as they thought it would be.

YES, parts of NJ and NY are flooded, but nothing major. OUR neighborhood is fine... I posted a few pictures of some downed leaves and our car in 1/4 inch of water.... We are very lucky.

I think the news is RIDICULOUS... especially when they are STILL reporting on things that don't need to be reported on and are latching onto any kind of "story" they can find. My friend Lauren joked that up in New England, the reporters were cutting down their own trees so they could have something to talk about.

So now it's over and we've all survived.... Liam and Eli survived their first hurricane/tropical storm. And when all is said and done, we had a REALLY nice, really low-key family weekend. I neeeeever get weekends with my family (when I do...they are cause we have an event or something to go to). It was SO nice to have a low key, getting to do laundry and put away my stuff that's accumulated throughout the past month kind of weekend. Yay!!!