It’s difficult to hurry when it’s warm and blue-sky, but I cut short a visit with my father and step-mother to drive home and batten down the hatches the day before Dorian was expected to hit Nova Scotia as a Category 1 Hurricane.
I asked a friend for help checking and securing the tie-downs on the tiny house. I put possible yard projectiles in the garage. In the farmhouse, I checked the basement drainage and secured the attic windows. I thought of the ways I could have better prepared, like not waiting until the last minute to get flashlight batteries. When the hurricane got upgraded to a Category 2, I started moving faster like the previous week when a bee flew up my pant leg.
Know thyself. I had planned to play cards with nearby friends to take my mind off the storm. The upgrade cinched my decision to stay overnight with them. I had done everything I could—now to distract myself and not over-worry. The power went out around 4:30, we watched the trees bend, and stayed up playing cards by candle-light and lanterns.
Downed trees caused power outages across the province. All grade schools were closed for two days. Whether to rural or urban folk, storms here always serve as a reminder of interdependence—checking on neighboUrs and helping out. My friends are equipped for outages so I enjoyed two hot breakfasts in their kitchen. We were grateful it wasn’t an outage during the cold of winter.
In December 2006, I was living in the Seattle area during a big wind storm that knocked out power for days (and weeks for some residents). The following day, I went to my office building to find out if there was power there and if there was … work. The foyer was packed with adults behaving badly in front of the row of receptionists who had bravely commuted. No, we don’t have power and, no, we don’t have intra- or internets and, that’s right, you can’t access your work email. The crowd could not compute that they could not compute. One woman I met called hotels until she found one with working internet and booked a room for the week so she could get back on work email.
That was the year before the first smart phone was released. The day after this month’s storm, I was not the only one frustrated with the spotty cellular service as I tried to connect and confirm with family and friends that they were OK. And as the power outage stretched on (in my community 3-5 days), I relied on my smart phone to find out who got power back and when. The large town 50 minutes away where I do most of my shopping was business-as-usual. I chose comfort. I took a friend who lives there up on her offer and stayed two nights. Yes, I’m getting better at asking for and accepting help.
Note: During an outage, the kitchen and bathroom I use in the (on-grid) farmhouse are affected but I still have lights in the solar-powered tiny house (and can charge my devices there).
Related links:
- help 101 (post #22)
- How does Dorian compare to 2003’s Hurricane Juan? (SOURCE: CBC News)
- 2006 Pacific Northwest Hanukkah Eve Windstorm (SOURCE: Wikipedia)
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