I'm alive!!!! I'm so happy! I survived Hurricane Irene (or Tropical Storm Irene, I guess; whatever you call her, I did not like her). It was an adventure, to be sure. Honestly, not as much of an adventure as I originally planned, but I feel ok about that.
The storm kind of got started on Saturday night; that's when it started to rain, anyway. I was pretty nervous about the whole thing, but I tried to make sure I had everything in order, just in case the worst should happen (whatever the hell that means). Anyway, I was ready.
I had a hard time sleeping and woke up several times. Honestly, I was freaking out a little bit. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I've always felt like I could handle pretty much everything. You know, I'm a Brinkerhoff, we're pretty tough, and I can be fairly resourceful. Plus, I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I'm certainly not the dullest. At any rate, the one thing I never felt like I could handle was a natural disaster. So, of course, here I am in the middle of a natural disaster. I bet mother nature had a good chuckle.
Anyway, when I finally managed to peek out from my covers it was about 9 in the morning. It was raining, but the wind wasn't too bad. My power was out which kind of sucked, but I still had running water. I had everything ready. I had my tub full of water just in case I ran out of running water (I read up on how to prepare oneself for a hurricane. I was ready dammit! He who is prepared shall not fear, right? What a bunch of bullshit. I was terrified.) Anyway, I opened up my blinds so I could see this awful natural disaster that I was certain was going to wipe me off the face of the planet. At least there weren't any sharks. It was kind of cool to see, actually. I got a few pictures, but I was kind of afraid to go outside, so they aren't very good pictures. Sorry. Next time there's a hurricane and/or tropical storm out here, feel free to come visit me and take a picture yourself.
Anyway, I kept checking the weather forecast on my phone and reading the news updates. Some power lady said we should all be prepared to be without power for days. Days, with an s. I hoped she was just being pessimistic. As it turns out, she was. My power came back on at around 1:30 or 2, and I promptly celebrated by taking a nap. It was a glorious little nap, and I slept with all of my lights on. Anyway, the power went out again at about 6, and that's when the wind really picked up, in my neck of the woods anyway. I didn't like it. I closed all of my windows so I couldn't hear it. Of course, I could still hear it, but it made me feel better.
Anyway, I busted out my little flashlights and tried to get some homework done. Called Nationalgrid, again, to tell them my power was out. They had an automated phone message thing. I kind of felt bad; I expect they were pretty busy. Apparently like 90,000 people were without power by 6 o'clock. Apparently some of them still are. Counting my blessings...
Anyway, in a fit of wishful thinking I decided to go downstairs and check my braker (I don't know how to spell that). I knew that the power was out because a tree came down on my street (yes, the whole tree. And it was a very big tree. It actually uprooted the sidewalk. It's still there, so no one is driving on woodlawn. It's been kind of quiet), but I hoped I could just switch the braker and my lights would come on again. So through the torrent of wind and rain I went down into my basement. It stunk. It kind of smelled like a mixture of insecticide and gasoline. So now I was all worried that I had a gas leak and my house was going to blow up. Wouldn't that just be my luck?
I called my dear Father who, I'm certain, wondered what I wanted him to do about it. He told me to call Nationalgrid. So I did. They showed up fairly quickly. Apparently what I was smelling was something horrid that had come up the drain when our basement flooded, but we did actually have a gas leak. So two guys from Nationalgrid stayed here until about midnight fixing our gas leak, and my landlords came today to fix the smell.
When I woke up this morning, my power was still out. Cursing Irene, I walked my ass up to the school library. I needed my computer to do my homework, and my laptop is old - the battery doesn't last very long. Anyway, whilst at the library I got a call saying the power had been restored. Yay!! All was right again in my world.
So, all things considered Irene wasn't too terrible to us. There has been widespread flooding throughout the region, and there are still several flood warnings being issued. There are still people without power, and there are still giant trees blocking the roads, but for the most part Albany is recovering quite nicely. I'm really grateful for the power people who, I'm sure, are getting lots of overtime. I for one am appreciative that they are working so hard. I love electricity!
I was going to post my shitty pictures of Irene, but it's taking to long to load, and I am exceedingly tired. I'll post them tomorrow. Until then may you all be in sunshine only (maybe some shade).
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