On Tuesday afternoon, around 1:50 pm, I was standing in the kitchen when I heard everything in the second floor attic starting to shift around making this loud popping and cracking sound. I quickly walked into the living room when I felt my legs begin to shake and my pottery on the shelves begin shifting. Not knowing what to do I ran to the hallway and then looked out the front door expecting to see a tornado. Everything was perfectly calm outside and the sun was shining bright. By the time I decided I might need to get the kids out of the bed because I didn't know what was going on it stopped. At first I thought that it might have been an earthquake but then I shrugged it off thinking it was just some military airplanes that were flying too low causing our house to shake. I went on about my business and later turned the news on to find that a 5.9 magnitude earthquake had hit about two hours away in Virginia. Crazy, huh?! Earthquakes don't hit on the east coast and we are a LONG way from California. Once I realized what had happened it really took me a moment to let it all sink in. It was truely amazing that no one was hurt and that there was minimal damage from such a strong earthquake for the east coast.
Two things I learned from the earthquake: 1) You don't run to the hallway when a earthquake hits. You either go outside or stand in a door way. 2) I don't know that having the pottery displayed above my windows is a wise idea.
Did I mention that Benjamin was out of town during the whole experience. Crazy.
Only 4 days later I found myself preparing for another natural disastor. We had a catergory 3 hurricane, Irene, heading straight our way. I have never been in a hurricane either so I really had no clue how to prepare. Thanks to the internet I spent Friday making sure we had everything we needed in the case we lost power for several days.
Chicken noodle soup for dinner and sweet treats to help pass the time away.
Lots and lots of batteries, candles and flashlights. We also get all of our water from a well which is wonderful thing because we don't have to pay a water bill and we have really good drinking water, BUT when the power goes out we also lose our water because our pump stops working. So, I spent time scrubbing our bathtub and then filling in it with clean water to have for a couple of days.
Three jugs of fresh water and one jug of tea and a fully stocked pantry with several cans of fruit and ravioli.
Emma Claire and Camp were also ready to go!!
Benjamin made it in Friday night around midnight. Thankfully is was one of the last flights they had running because they were shutting down everything going up and down the east coast. (he was coming from NYC) Could you imagine if he got stuck there? I don't even want to think about it.
The wind and rain begin not long after midnight and continued on all day Saturday. Amazingly enough the power never stayed off for long periods of time. We did lose our cable and internet for the day, but we were still able to go to the bathrooms and flush our potties. : ) We did have really strong winds and in a neighborhood with lots and lots a trees it did leave for quite a bit of clean up. I am so thankful how the Lord took care of us during this storm. There are so many people still left without power and have lots of damage to clean up.
I borrowed this next picture from my friend Stephanie because I didn't dare go outside and brave the wind around all of my trees. You can tell just how hard the wind was blowing. We had gusts from 50-70 mph all day.
The neighbors out cleaning up.
Left: Our neighbors across the street had quite a bit of clean up to do. Right: You can't tell it very good in the picture because the leaves are the same color as the grass but we had lots and lots off leaves all over the place.
Heading over to the neighbors to help clean up.
Everyone pitched in to help!
After an afternoon outside everything is picked up and cleaned up! Thank you, Lord, for protecting my family during these storms.
No comments:
Post a Comment