Hurricane Irene

Like most of the country - the East Coast anyway - we were very interested to see what Hurricane Irene was going to end up doing and where it would go.

Forecasters kept saying all week how bad it would be. How strong it would be - even going as far as saying it would get as high as a Cat 4 at one point. At first we were worried about it coming here and since we live only a few miles from the Gulf of Mexico, hurricanes are a real possibility for us. However once the track changed, the forecaster's than started saying it would impact almost the entire East Coast, we now had a new reason to worry.

We still own a house from when we were stationed in Virginia. And although, Chuck's mom rents it from us, we are still - obviously - responsible for it. Because it ended up being a Cat 2 by the time it got to VA, Kathie evacuated to Chuck's sister's house in Richmond to wait out the storm. Knowing they would all be safe together, we both were very concerned about the house. The house itself sits in a low-risk flood area so while we weren't worried too much about flooding, there are a lot of trees in the yard and surrounding the house. This was one of the things that drew us to the house - even though it maybe should have detered us had we been thinking "hurricane" risk.

We were both pretty edgy of Saturday knowing the storm was sitting right over the house. Unlike Chuck, I wanted to know what was going on so I kept watching the news. Not like I was getting much information from the news, but I do have a few people that I used to work with at NNPS that live in our neighborhood who I am friends with on facebook. So I was able to (sort of) keep tabs on what was happening in the neighborhood a little bit.

Chuck's mom returned to the house yesterday (Sunday) to scope out the damage. She came home to no power and still has no power as of yet. There was a lot of debris in the front and back yard - tree limbs, branches, leaves, etc. - but we are so very lucky to report that nothing happened to the house. Phew! We are both so glad that is over with and even more anxious for 2013 to arrive so we can try and sell the house!!! We have enough things to worry about...