Sandy Was Not the One That I Wanted

     How our street looked the afternoon following Sandy's arrival.

And that was a relief. Pretty weird. But this was our porch step the night before:

That's water, in case it's not clear in the glow of the flashlight. It was up to about a hand below the mailbox, and the neighbors' boat looked floating and at home. Oh, here's where the water was on the car in the first picture. It didn't get on the carpet inside it, though. Just wet at the running boards.

     I wish I had better pictures of the storm, especially the crazy aurora borealis effect I saw at one point. It was otherworldly. But as for being a proper photographer/videographer, I was busy being in the storm and frightened, so that's how that went.

     A big thank you to our town for posting the mandatory evacuation on their website, alongside helpful trash pickup info from 2010. I finally saw the notice three days after the storm while charging items in the mall, which had power and internet access. For Irene, we got loudspeakers, door postings, and most importantly, announcements on local radio. This time, silence and a page-click off home on a dated, half-empty website. Luckily, everyone in our town still has a house. But perhaps if we'd known there was a mandatory evacuation (no one did---everyone but one home's residents were here, compared to maybe three for Irene), we'd have known to take it at least as seriously. Instead, we thought we were at less risk than the mandatory evac towns.