In September I met hurricane Irma, my first.  See that little blue dot in picture, yup, that’s us. The red is the “cone of uncertainty”
as of Sunday morning.  After the crazy summer I had it seems that my summer wasn’t done yet.  The weather people started announcing Irma’s arrival at least 7-10 days prior to her actual arrival.  That alone was an anxious time, the waiting and watching.  Trying not to let the news scare me but to take it serious enough to plan.

The obvious things are flashlights, candles and water ( my secret for water was to go to Office Max, who thinks office supplies for water, works every time).  We discovered that our tub would not hold water… who knew.  The yarn stash to the rescue.  I emptied 4 tubs of yarn to fill with water in case we lost power and the water, this is important for flushing (we lost power but not the water, of course no hot water). I stocked up on granola bars, peanut butter, crackers, tuna, canned fruit….  We have new windows, but there are 4 that are sliders so I laid towels in the tracks in case she came hard from the south.

She arrived at night and stayed the whole night.  Who could sleep when we kept getting tornado warnings regularly. Then the power went out. ….  No fans, no air…. ugh

Verizon waived the data limits on phone for the coming week, a life saver for sure.
Everything stayed in tact, the building and the windows (we are on the 5th of 6 floors). Irma didn’t have a lot of water with her, thank goodness.  Irma did housekeeping on the trees and the spanish moss.  Monday afternoon the power linemen were outside our  window clearing branches that hung on the power line, I have a new respect for them and the work they do pre and post storms.

The music for days was chain saws and leaf blowers, no tv, no internet.  We only lost our power for 48 hours, but many in my town went a week or more.  I will not take power for granted, ever.

One of the best things  I have is a LED headlamp.  With it I was able to crochet as it got dark and I read 1 1/2 books while the power was out (Lee Child and Patricia Cornwell if you were wondering).

Irma was a 2 going down to 1 when she came to visit.  I will not stay for more than a tropical storm again, so not worth the worry and anxiety.   Take mother nature seriously please.