Late again in posting – then again, this week was sort of a repeat of last week.
Well, remember last week that problem we had in the basement from Henri passing by? We were lucky - within 3 days the carpet on the floor that had been wet was dry. We kept the dehumidifier set to a very low level all week making sure that the basement stayed dry.
This week “the remnants” of Hurricane Ida were to “pass by”. This is not unusual around here for the leftover rain from a hurricane down south to pass through – normally a bit of rain, no big deal.
Early on in showing the route of these remnants it was obvious it was coming here and that it was going to be a large storm coming through. As we got closer and closer to the storm being here we were warned and warned about this would be a major storm.
I did our laundry on Tuesday night instead of on Wednesday and Thursday - just in case, I wanted to make sure we had as much clean clothing as possible.
As we had the news on the TV on Wednesday we saw major flooding in Pennsylvania – 2 states away. I heard that the area there, Lancaster County, that we often travel was being hit terribly bad – showing flooded roads and hearing of flooding in areas we know. The campground we stay in Lancaster is adjacent to a creek – we hate to think what it must look like and how damage may have been done as the creek probably ran over its banks – for the second time since we started staying there 20 years ago.
The storm came closer. As I heard about what might be happened here I started looking up online – What does one do if a flash flood comes – go upstairs in the house - yeah, that was I figured. A lot of rain here (though not this much) is not that uncommon here, but flash floods not common. Tornadoes, on the other hand – DO NOT HAPPEN HERE! We were put on notice that there might tornadoes with this storm as it passed through. Looked up online what does one do if a tornado is passing through – go in the basement – hmm, sort of figured that, so I was right. BUT – what if a tornado and a flash flood pass through at the same time?????? Stay in the middle of the house and pray? We have a small half bathroom on the lower floor of the house which has no windows and is surrounded on all 4 sides by other rooms and I have always figured it to be the safest place if a hurricane was coming (hurricanes not the most common thing, but do pass through here as you can probably tell) – would that do? High enough to avoid the first 8 feet or so of flood and fairly low down? No idea and thank goodness we did not have to figure it out.
For the first time since the system was started – we received text alert messages that flash floods were in the area – looked out the front windows – looked okay to us, looked out the back windows – ditto, stayed where we were on the first floor. We received 5 text messages about flash floods in the area over a 3 hour period.
Luckily we did not receive any text alert message about a tornado in the immediate area – but there were several in the greater NYC/Long Island area.
I had cooked dinner a bit earlier than usual – always best to face a disaster with a full stomach. I am the sane, sensible one of the two of us – my husband is the one who panics. My brain says “What are the chances this will happen?” and “What do we need to do to deal with it if does happen – taking into account the chances that it will?
I was not going to start packing clothing and such to take with us. What we would actually NEED if we had to run? Hmm, cash, prescription medications, keys, cell phones, our wallets with identification and credit cards and - these days - our Covid-19 vaccination cards and masks.
Husband keeps his wallet in his pocket all the time. I have mine down here in the kitchen on magnetic pocket on the refrigerator with the rest of the items I need when I walk out of the house.
I have a smaller zippered purse that we have items we take when we go on trips that we don't normally need at home – including a third wallet with a credit card that I don't normally carry and a different one which husband does not normally carry (if one of our wallets was stolen, we could cancel all of the other credit cards and still have one to use). Debit cards from banks we don't normally use – but do have money in accounts there. Important to have – I went upstairs and got it. I added into it the 2 credit cards (on one account) we keep upstairs and only use when have to order something and pay with a credit card.
We have a plastic shopping bag we have been keeping in the kitchen – hangs on the door to our basement – which has items we need to take out with us these days due to Covid – masks, plastic zip bags to put the worn masks in, a handle husband made to open doors which one has to turn the handle to open while out so we don't have to actually touch the handle, his eyeglasses (these are unrelated to Covid – he happened to find out just before the pandemic started that he needs to wear his eyeglasses while driving and by keeping it in this bag we take when we go in the car, he has his eyeglasses and since it is in the kitchen, if he needs them while watching TV, etc he can easily get them, and small plastic bags (sandwich sized) to use to push doors open and similar without touching them. The bag is from a different store than our other stored plastic shopping bags so it is obvious to us what it is. I added to this bag the zippered purse from upstairs and also added our main checkbook. (I thought about grabbing our passports – but they both expired in the middle of the pandemic and no one would accept them for any purpose due to same.)
I then took all the backup medications we have – we get 90 days at a time so these bottles currently hold 30-60 days worth of our meds – put them in a plastic zip loc bag and added them to the bag in the kitchen – which was now a bit too heavy so I put it in a large more sturdy shopping bag and back on the basement door knob.
Hmmm, we don't keep a lot of cash in our wallets – cash is always something good to have in an emergency – credit card machine might not work, might need to buy something from someone who does not take credit cards, etc. We keep cash for change for when we do an event with our craft business – grabbed the bag of cash ($100) and added that.
I had decided to keep all of this in the kitchen with me. Husband would soon be down here also and I could meet up with him outside if something did happen and he had to go out the front door and I had to go out the kitchen door. I also grabbed our two rain jackets and hung them on the hooks in the kitchen.
Not perfect as nothing else in the house is set up to be cared for, no spare clothing, but we could get by in an emergency.
We ate dinner and were watching TV in the kitchen (where we normally do so in the evening) when the emergency warnings started – and mostly we were local news.
Thank goodness as far as our area is concerned we were fine! The rain came pouring down – we could hear it, but no flash flood in our area and no tornado.
In NYC (at least) 15 people died – several of them due to the fact that they lived in a basement apartment (some legal, some not) and it flooded and they could not get out. Roads were overrun with rain elsewhere in the NYC area to the point that vehicles had to be abandoned and people saved from them. The commuter rail lines were stopped for hours. The subway – well, there is footage of one subway station with a gigantic wave of water coming down the stairs – the subway also had to be stopped overnight and people who not get home spent the night in the stations. Municipal buses could not run – in at least one case the bus driver who could not go anywhere was letting people into the bus just to stand on the seats (bus was filling up with water also) as it was safer than being out in the street. There were at least 2 tornadoes in the general area.
Then the clean up began – vehicles which were abandoned on the road had to be moved to reopen the roads – and I am talking 3 lane, limited access roads in addition to more local roads. People cleaning up around their homes and businesses. In one case a couple in their 80s actually slept though a tornado and a tree coming down through their roof to next to their bed – their poor son who lived in the house had trouble both getting in their room due to the tree and waking them up and thought that they were dead – luckily they were unharmed!
It will take some time for all to be cleared up. We went out for lunch today – things seem to be okay. Most areas managed to keep their electricity somehow and much of what was out has been (surprisingly based on other events in the past) restored by the local utility already. We did not lose our electricity.
We did get water in our basement for the second time in the 31 years we have been here (Henri being the first time). We again vacuumed up the water with a wet dry vac and ran the dehumidifier, which is always on in hot weather any way, but we set it to a dryer setting so it is pulling more water out of the air and by this morning the carpet was dry.
The area had more rain from the remnants of Ida than New Orleans had from the actual hurricane and worse wind than same.
What I pulled out in case we had to run out of the house for safety is all put back where it belongs. We are hoping we will not need to do any of this again – or at least not soon.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
One does not know what will happen. Do YOU have a plan of what to do if something like this happened in your area? Do you know what you need to take and where to go?
By the way – what I think is terrible thinking – The New York Tennis Open has been on this week. They did not call off the scheduled games the day this happened. The storm hit here as people were leaving. At least one of the areas of play was outside. People left the Open by car and subway as the storm was starting so many people who had been there were caught in the mess on the subways, trains and roads. With what was known to be coming, they should have canceled playing that day!
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