As of writ­ing this Hur­ri­cane Irene is fore­cast to hit Long Island start­ing mid-day tomor­row (Sat­ur­day) and last through at least Sun­day evening.  I’m writ­ing and queu­ing this for post­ing on Fri­day since I don’t know if I’ll have pow­er or inter­net when it comes.

Opin­ion var­i­ous but the main two fore­casts show the storm either com­ing straight across Long Island, lit­er­al­ly right through my front yard! Or, steer­ing a lit­tle to the West of New York City but still blow­ing hard and dump­ing lots of rain all around. Pred­i­ca­tions call for it to be any­thing from a trop­i­cal storm to a cat­e­go­ry 3 hur­ri­cane when it gets here.

May­or Bloomberg has issued a “request” (not manda­to­ry, yet)for evac­u­a­tion from the low­er lying areas of the city. And the state Parks Depart­ment has issued a manda­to­ry evac­u­a­tion for the Fire Island towns. That’s not uncom­mon even for a nor’easter storm.

And at this moment South­side Hos­pi­tal in Bay Shore is being evac­u­at­ed as well as new warn­ings and urges to evac­u­ate in Nas­sau Coun­ty.

Noth­ing can be done about the weath­er.

It’s been a very long time since the last hur­ri­cane hit New York City and Long Island. We get nor’easters every year and we did get a mini-hur­ri­cane two years ago in the sprint (winds about 80 mph with is a Cat 1) though it wasn’t labeled a hur­ri­cane.

But this is why you prep!

I feel very good about my preps head­ing into the storm. Sure I could have/should have done more. But noth­ing I can do about it now.

But by com­par­i­son to oth­ers I am waaaaaaay a head of the curve!

I went to Cost­co yes­ter­day at noon to get a few last minute items. It was a zoo. Not unruly but very crowd­ed.

No ‘D’ bat­ter­ies.
No paper tow­els.
No TP.
And no gen­er­a­tors.

(Side note: To the point of infla­tion, a cut of meat Cost­co sells called “flap meat” start­ed as a cheap cut but now is $6.29/pound!! Even Lon­don Broil was only $3.99/pound!)

To the lat­ter, I over­heard two guys argu­ing with a store employ­ee about why don’t they have any gen­er­a­tors! The employ­ee said they might get a few tomor­row (today) but can’t guar­an­tee it. The two guys were very angry. Idiots! What the heck did they expect two days before a hur­ri­cane? Why didn’t they buy a genie months or even years ago?

That rea­son is sim­ple: We haven’t had the need for one for the most part in years.

I don’t blame peo­ple either. I don’t have a gen­er­a­tor. That’s a debate my wife and I have had for many years. It’s true that a good sized genie is expen­sive. Then there’s the cost and issues of stor­age of fuel. There is OPSEC to con­sid­er. And the prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tion of hav­ing a unit large enough for basic needs (refrig­er­a­tor, freez­er, heat etc) yet not be a mon­ster unit.

That evening I stopped at a local super­mar­ket on the way home. Milk was almost gone as were eggs, OJ and cheese. About half the pro­duce was gone and what was left was in poor shape. Bread, meat and canned goods were still plen­ti­ful though.

Mov­ing on…

Spoke to a friend this morn­ing. She said she tried to go to the super­mar­ket yes­ter­day for sup­plies. Couldn’t find any bot­tled water or flash­lights. Then she asked what kind of sup­plies she should get. No clue! I told her canned soup, fruits and veg­gies, chick­en and tuna. She thought that was a great idea. I also told her to fill up on gas and get some extra cash from the bank. She hadn’t even thought about that!

At work today a co-work­er said she went to the local Tar­get store yes­ter­day. They were out of bot­tled water, flash lights and ‘D’ bat­ter­ies too. Then she went to the local Ace Hard­ware. The line was out the door. She didn’t even both­er try­ing to go in.

And a man­ag­er I work with has to rush around today to get his car’s tire patched instead of tak­ing care of it weeks ago.

I just went to the Radio Shack near my office. They were out of all the crank style emer­gency radios. I did get a small AM/FM. I have a marine radio that gets NOAA so that should be good enough for now. But they still did have ‘D’ bat­ter­ies.

Well, this is going to be inter­est­ing. At a min­i­mum it will be a good test of my prepa­ra­tion. So far I think I’m doing very well. I’m short in the areas I know about any­way and those that for fam­i­ly issues (i.e. the lit­tle lady) are a tough sell. But every­thing else seems to be falling into place well. I am very proud of my work on this and hope none is nec­es­sary.

See you on the oth­er side.

 

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