THE EVENING IDA STOPPED NEW YORK - PLANNING AHEAD OF TIME WHAT TO DO IN EMERGENCIES

 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!

FOLLOWUP TO ORDERS ARE LATE - OR NOT AND NEW POST - NO MATTER WHAT ONE PREPARES FOR - SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS

 First an update – last weeks jeans post – So they were suppose to come on Wednesday, then late Wednesday we got an email that they were delayed and would be coming Friday – so, of course they came on Thursday!  Now most people would think it great to get a day earlier than the amended date of arrival – But what if we had not been home?  What it was raining all day?  What we if we gone away as it was not coming until Friday?  The package would have had a good chance of disappearing!  This is one of the main reasons we don't order things – delivery is so iffy.  (We had sort of resolved this problem, at least items were not sitting out in front of our house, by using a service from the Post Office called “Street Addressing” for our Post Office Box – which allows the Post Office to sign for the items and deliver them to our box (technically the item is being delivered to the Post Office itself, not us, which is how they get around the idea that other carriers cannot deliver to a box intended to receive Postal mail (which includes that box you put up next to your door at home for your mail delivery – which is why the other delivery companies do not put anything in that box).  But since we are not going out, we have to have things delivered to our house – and then keep looking out the door all day to see if the item was received.  It would have been nice if when they left the package, they did not leave it against the door which meant we had to go out the side door to the front door to get the package as we could not open the or walk out the front door.

Now this week's subject -

Our area was just missed by Hurricane/Tropical Storm Henri last weekend.  First it was to hit the east of our Island, then it was going to hit the east end of the Island, then it was going to hit further west along the Island – it finally passed the Island on the east side by a good bit, so we had rain but no wind.  

Wind is what concerns us the most.  Our local electric utility has not done well dealing with major storms to the point that the utility company which was managing and running it was fired and a new company hired a short few years ago.  That company failed in a major way last year with Hurricane Isaias – some people had no electricity for weeks afterward.  Their system to let them know about outages and later get information about restoration time frames did not work.  (A friend of a neighbor worked at the utility and neighbor let us know we would be out for 3 days minimum.  Information was wrong – we were lucky and we were back on that night.)

When a storm is coming we prepare.  Every cell phone and laptop computer, no matter how old (or if the cell phone has service) is plugged in to charge and left to do so until we until we know we are not having an outage.  Why every one?  Well, cell phones can dial 911 if one has no service, so the older phones can be used in an emergency if our current ones' batteries are used up.  Our cable company has wifi running in the street outside our house and we can always use laptops – whether Windows 10 or XP (the assortment of laptops we have) with the wifi to access the Internet to contact someone in an emergency.  Our flashlights are checked to make sure their batteries are good.    We have a camping lantern which runs on batteries or a charge pack – we make sure the charge pack is fully charged is also charged and left charged until we know we are okay.  

I also clear areas where we will be walking.  I got this idea from how rooms were set up in the 1700s.  The furniture was placed against the walls (other than items such as beds) when the furniture was not in used.  When an item of furniture was needed it would be carried to the center of the room (and beds were too heavy to carry easily) and used – time to eat?  Table and chairs carried to center of room and family eats.  Done eating?  Table and chairs put back against the wall.  Main reason was that it allowed one room to be used for many purposes.  A secondary reason (which applies here) is that one could walk through the room without walking into anything even in low light.  I first tried this idea during Hurricane Sandy and it worked well.  We could easily walk around the living room, front hall, and dining room without a flashlight until it was dark at night.  I move items we keep on the upstairs landing of our house into the spare bedroom so we don't trip on them.  (Two low, small tables with bear figurines on it.)  

So we did all our preparations in anticipation of losing our electricity.  We thought how lucky we were that the storm hit further east and our electricity was safe – the main rain from the storm was far west of us in New Jersey and further upstate New York – though we did get a LOT of heavy rain.  It rained from just before we stepped out the door Saturday night to pickup Chinese food (was not raining at all when we ordered it and rain was not suppose to come until late – concert run by NYC got caught in the rain also had to be canceled mid-concert – though I think them foolish for having it once the storm was coming).  The rain continued all day Sunday and well into Monday morning.  

Monday we went out and checked around  - everything thing seemed to be okay.  There was a dove who seemingly was sitting on our side steps as when we opened the door she (our assumption for no particular reason) was flustered or pushed off the steps and was walking around confused.   We then went out for fast food lunch.  On our return the dove was still walking around dazed and confused and we were concerned it had been injured as it did not fly.  (There are usually two of these doves around and we don't know what happened to the other and if this one was waiting for the other or confused as to where it was.)  I tried calling wild animal agencies with no luck and husband went to move her to see what was going on – she then flew off – thank goodness she was okay – just dazed – and we did not have to worry about her not eating.

So all seemed fine and we relaxed.  Monday night we walked into the basement to empty the dehumidifier before going to bed.  Husband said “Why are my slippers wet?”  Since we have never (to our knowledge) had a flood in the basement – we had not thought about same.  From what we can determine rain came in the basement side window.  We were vacuuming up water until almost 5 in the morning with a wet vacuum.  I have been going down often to empty the dehumidifier for the past two days.  The carpet (indoor/outdoor) is seemingly approaching dry – we moved the dehumidifier to a different stop which seemed damper and may have to do so in a couple of other spots.  Also have a fan running downstairs during the day.  We have had to toss a large sheet of card board and when it is dry down there will have to check for which other items need to be tossed – most items are in plastic boxes or bags so hopefully nothing important or expensive is lost.  

THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
No matter how or what emergency one prepares for, something will happen that one did not expect.  Do the best you can to deal with emergency possibilities ahead of time.

COVID 19 #17 SIMPLE THINGS IN NORMAL TIMES TAKE PATIENCE AND UNDERSTANDING NOW

I have been writing about our lives under the current corona virus pandemic as it involves organizing in a totally different way than normal.  What were simple things to do before this past March when this started in our area of the U.S. - such as running out of bread and needing to buy more – has become things which take much more planning and organizing to deal with.  I know that those reading my posts are going through similar problems and I hope that those in the areas now being hit hard by the virus and their loved ones (as well as the rest of you) are well and safe and stay that way.  I had intended to post once or twice about the subject, but it seems to have become a series and will stay that way for awhile – dealing with emergencies being more exciting to read about than how I do my laundry or do (or do not) clean my house.

We have separate “through the wall” air conditioners in different rooms of the house.  The one in our bedroom was not doing well at the end of last summer.  But rather than buy one right away and have most of the warranty run during the winter when the air conditioner was not running, we figured we would buy one in the spring – ha ha ha.  We need to have the air conditioner installed for us as it is not something we can do – especially since the bedroom is on the second floor.  Since I am generally cold I have been fine.  Husband though is feeling terrible while sleeping and waking up from the heat. 

When we realized this air conditioner was not working, other than as a fan, I suggested we bring up the “portable” one we have for the living room.  This is a device about 3 and half feet tall and weighs 68 pounds – it can be rolled around to where it is needed and attaches to an approximately 6 inch tall plastic piece which expands in width to fit the window and is placed in the bottom of an open window and the window is pulled down on top of the plastic piece.  We managed with both us lifting, to carry it upstairs – one step at a time.  We set into the window and did a proper installation of it in the window, sealing it into the open window.  We turned it on – and – it did not work either, except as a fan!  We took it out of the window and pushed it into the spare  (teddys') room as we are not sure we can get it back downstairs. 

In the interim we have tried various solutions – using the dehumidifier from the basement – blew hot air out the side and the basement really needed it back as it started to smell of humidity.  (Also took both of us to carry up and then back down – 2 flights of stairs, but somewhat lighter than the portable air conditioner.)  3 different fans – the one we use in our RV works best and is what we are using.  I even tried the early version of air conditioning - “air cooling” putting frozen bottles of water in front of the fan – worked a bit, but the water was melted before the hot morning (overnight being cooler in the room).  We had thought to put the bottles in a baking pan on a thick towel so there was no wet mess on the table or floor to deal with.  He ends up turning on the other 2 air conditioners upstairs (in office and spare bedroom) in the morning to avoid getting sick and he is worried that he will “use them up”.

This past week the temperatures went up and seem to plan to stay up – we ae heading into the 90Fs late this week into next week.  I looked for alternatives.  I suggested husband sleep on the twin bed in the spare bedroom and I would make up a bed on the floor for me to sleep on, so he would not be alone.  He point out – politely – that the room would need a major cleaning – dusting and vacuuming at the very least as it has been years since we (I) bother cleaning it as all it is used for is bears, dolls, and their friends sitting around.  In the 31 years in the house it has been used as a guest room 3 times – and that was over 15 years ago.  So that idea was out. 

We were left with one solution.  It is a solution that in normal times (and for normal people) would be no problem – we need to buy a new air conditioner.  Now for me having someone come in the house, let alone the bedroom brings up major fears of getting bed bugs again – we had them 11 years ago and since then live our lives so as to avoid getting them again (hence our little RV for traveling).  Right now – we are both terrified about having someone come in  the house – especially the bedroom – but there is no other choice.  (I thought about sleeping in the RV – but we would need to either keep the generator running – burning gas and putting out fumes next to the bedroom of the little girl next door or plug it into to a 30 amp outlet – and do not have one.)

So Monday husband called the local appliance store we have bought our air conditioners from before and priced the one he saw online.  Tuesday we put on our masks and went in and bought it.  Their ad said “next day delivery”, but that is not case when it has to be installed – they are coming next Tuesday – a long hot week away from we bought it – but that will give me a chance to clear out the bedroom so we can move furniture for them to get to where they have to work and have room to do so. We plan to push the bed to the other side of the room the night before and cover it that day with plastic tarps we use to cover the RV bed days when we are using the RV (so it does not look a bed from outside).  We have been assured that they take all precautions as one of the employees died from the virus – very reassuring or it means that they may have caught it from him?

And since, as it is said, it never rains but it pours – Sunday night we dropped our RV to have the mechanic figure out what the noise in the car air conditioner/heater was.  (It was excessive leaves blown in by neighbor's gardener disposing of THEIR leaves by blowing onto our property as the driveway with RV on it is next to the fence between us.  (Hopefully this problem will end as the neighbor is filling in the fence with plastic slots – but then we won't be able to blow our snow onto the property.)  When we picked up the RV Monday night, we left our car – it needed an oil change – and as we drove it there, we found it needed a new headlight.  We picked it up Tuesday night.  So, of course, a reminder popped up on my computer calendar – our van needed to have the state inspection done by the end of the month.  So we just dropped it off for same and an oil change – as we pulled out of our driveway the brakes were not right…  The mechanic (and his staff) are very nice and very capable and honest.  What we have been doing is dropping the vehicles off late night when no one is around.  Since we don't want to go and leave the keys (or we could leave the vehicles also) during the day – we want it  “contactless” we put the keys in an envelope and throw it in a slot in the building when we leave the vehicle.  When it is finished he calls us and I pay with a credit card by phone (paid the RV and car on one payment) and he leaves the receipt and keys hidden in the vehicle (we have spare sets of keys so we can get in).  He has been very nice about this. 


THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -

All these normal problems that are handled so easily in normal times take a bit of a workaround to figure out how to deal with right now.  It takes patience and understanding by everyone involved to work it all out and luckily right now – people are mostly willing to do so. 

Stay well and safe.