Battening down the hatches for Hurricane Irene

Still no damn D batteries anywhere.  When am I going to learn to stock this stuff up before an emergency???

The guy in the condo beside us has come for the weekend.  I think he’s from Maryland or somewhere further north.  I don’t know too much about him but we’re all friendly.  He acts like it’s not going to be a big deal but he’s tying down his picnic table and throwing sandbags in front of the condo where it always floods during a storm whether it’s a small one or a large one.  He rents out his condo over the summers to tourists but this was his weekend there.  Some weekend.  There’s two other families who live in these condos, the rest are for tourists.  The one older guy on one side might be still in the hospital but his girlfriend is there at the house.  I see her every now and then, don’t know whether she’s weathering out the storm or not.  Then there’s this real cool guy on the other side.  He is 82 and more fit than I am believe that or not.  I love him to death.  I don’t know whether he’s going to weather it out or not but my hunch is that he is knowing him.  The tourists are still here in a few condos and my hunch on that is that they paid over a thousand bucks to rent these things, they’re staying.  Now this is of course if we don’t have a mandatory evacuation.

If we do, we really have no plan.  Get off the island with as much personal possessions as we can.  They’ll close the causeway at some point.  They have the local police call everyone listed in their directory in case of an emergency and I must call them to put my cell number on that list.

The daughter went out and bought more supplies – she found D batteries!  We’re good there and she bought another flashlight which now we’ve got 3.  Four if I can find the other one.  Candles.  I have a few, but the daughter is allergic to scented candles so we’ll just have to make do with what we have.  I have tea lights if worse gets to worse.

Food.  Well I feel I need more.  I have a few canned products, water, drinks but if electricity goes out, we’re screwed because there’s a lot of food in the refrigerator and freezer.  We’re busy cleaning out the bottom room that acts like a storage room outside and we grabbed a couple of coolers in case we have to stock up on ice.

Dogs.  Problem problem.  Cassie is dying.  She has cancer and we were going to put her down but the daughter said no, let’s do it after the storm that she couldn’t take on anymore stress.  I sent BF out to get some more pain pills for her and explained to the vet that we were going to put her down this week but it’s going to have to be next week.  I just wanted some pills to keep her in not so much pain.  We only got 1/2 bottle this time.

As of right now, it’s noon on Thursday and a little blustery at this point.  There’s supposed to be a cold front that may push Irene further west but we don’t know it’s going to do that.  It’s always windy here so I can’t really tell if this is normal, from the cold front, or from Irene.
Am I scared?  Yes.

Hurricane Irene on its way?

I’m sorry I haven’t updated lately, been so bogged down with work, but I want to let everyone know what’s going on with Hurricane Irene as far as Chincoteague Island is concerned.  Well, I’m now worried.  My daughter has been telling me it’s coming, be prepared and I didn’t want to think about it.  Talk about depressing.  Well now it’s to the point where I’m a little worried.  No, make that a lot worried.

It hasn’t hit the Outer Banks yet, but that’s supposed to be Friday or Saturday morning, or at least that’s when the worse will happen.  We’re not really that far from the Outer Banks – about 3 or 4 hours.  What has happened in the past is that it hits North Carolina and that usually slows the thing down so that we don’t get hurricane force winds.  We don’t know at this point whether it’s going to hit the Outer Banks square on or it’s going to brush it, but it doesn’t matter – the thing is so big, it’s going to do damage.

We slipped out to Walmart earlier to get some water, etc.  No D batteries so I’ll try to hit Family Dollar tomorrow to see if they have any left.  The flashlights work at this point but I don’t know how much life they have in them and better to be safe than sorry.  We bought 2 jugs of drinking water and a big pack of smaller bottles and hope that’s going to do it.
The way this thing is looking – it’s not good.  It’s mean and wide.  And frankly I’m scared.
We have dogs.  If we have a mandatory evacuation, what are we going to do with them?  I don’t know what we’re going to do.