Natural Disasters

The flood waters have receded and the blue sky is peeking out all over this morning, one day after Irene.  My husband and I hunkered down in our house during the storm glad we didn’t have to go anywhere.  I was told on Friday afternoon that we didn’t have to come in over the weekend because the Governor had declared a state of emergency so I went food shopping on my way home from work Friday night.  It was nice that I didn’t have to go anywhere during the storm.  I bought what I needed and went home knowing that I was relatively safe.  We were very lucky and had no power loss.  My husband and I took in our porch furniture and rolled up our awnings and sat back and watched a movie while at the same time watching the wall of water that suddenly came down.  The wind was in our favor and didn’t blow the water up under the roof shingles as we feared.  We did get some water in our basement and a little in our chimney with a small amount of water damage on our third floor, but all in all, we had nothing.

I still have to shake my head at the people who bought all the water in the store.  When I went over to the store on Friday the shelves were bare where the bottled water should have been.  I noticed that the chip aisle and the canned meat aisle were significantly down as well.  I supposed people took the warning to heart that they could be out of power for several days and really stocked up on things.  My neighbor filled her tubs with water in the event of power outages and got her mother’s medication so that she wouldn’t have to venture out.  I suppose the medication thing was a wise thing, but in the kind of area we live in there is really no need to go all out survival because we can always walk to get help from someone if we need it.   

We know all our neighbors and everyone helps each other out.  In situations like a natural disaster we have a very good support system and I can’t imagine ever being in trouble in our neighborhood because the people on our block would be very helpful to each other.  But I know others are not lucky that way and if anything goes wrong where they live they would not be able to depend on their neighbors.