“Tropical Storm Isaias May Become a Hurricane.”
I sat there dreaming…
“What if it really speeds up?”
I checked my handy note card: Category 1, 74-95 miles per hour; Category 2, 96-110 miles per hour. I recalled Francis and Jeanne and Wilma.
In spite of the news reports, Isaias did not speed up. The storm didn’t even come ashore. There was no rain.
Early this morning my husband, Ed, drank his coffee. Our eyes met. “I feel like we wasted the whole weekend,” he said.
“Wasted the whole weekend?” I inquired. “What would you prefer? Destruction?” Ed smirked.
It’s a weird feeling. The feeling that you’re going to get clobbered, preparing, and then it doesn’t happen at all. I recall Hurricane Dorian, September 1st of last year. I was convinced “this was it” – the end of all things material that I loved. I carried around a small box of my most dear possessions. Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5, hovered over and dismantled the Bahamas, but never arrived…
When Ed and I first moved into our home in Sewall’s Point, my neighbors told me they put hurricane shutters up on half the house every August. I thought they were being extremists. I rolled my eyes. Now, with so many fits and starts, I’ve begun to do the same.
Ed wanted to wait until September, but I thought, “you know, Isaias, this is an opportunity. An opportunity to plan, just in case Mother Nature isn’t crying wolf.“
So the bedroom is darker, and the living room needs lamps to read. But me? I feel ready. I feel prepared.
Atlantic Hurricane Season: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/climo/