Hurricane Irene

Yesterday was hot and humid with lots of rain towards the end of the day.  I think most of the storm hit NYC while we were sleeping.  I know that I went to bed with it raining and I woke up to it raining and I don't believe it let up much throughout the night.  Most of today has been the wind I can hear it still going and it hasn't let up since the rain stopped around 9 this morning.  

All I have to say is that I am grateful I was not in the worst of the hurricane.  I don't care how much hype there was about it and how it didn't meet New Yorkers expectations.  Eleven people have lost their lives because of the storm and I don't know why anyone would wish that it would have been as bad as all the news stations were predicting.   We should all be grateful that God let us slide on this one.  I do not believe that NYC would have been able to handle such a massive hurricane.  There is eight million people in a 12 mile radius that heavily relies on power and transportation for most of our needs and without access to bridges and tunnel we would be pretty much left on our own. We are also very stubborn and do not listen when people are trying to help us.  I saw people this morning walking their dogs, on a bike ride and driving who knows where... Something struck me as wrong with this picture. We were told to stay inside it isn't hard to do you can go out tomorrow or the next day, but no they want to keep their routines and it feels like these people are purposely being defiant to prove that nothing is wrong.

The view outside right now.

Why do people always want to push the limits?  I have been through quite a few storms in my 2 years here bad weather really isn't a rare occurrence and NY is obsessed with weather.  I have decided that there is two types of New Yorkers the people that are overly cautious and the ones that aren't cautious at all.  People here are either obsessed with making sure they know what the weather will be like each day and do not make plans without checking it first and there is those that do what they want when they want no matter if there is rain, snow, hurricane, wind or sunshine.  There really needs to be a balance because if this storm was as bad as people first thought a lot of people could have lost their lives because they didn't want to follow the rules.

I do not have a TV/cable so that was not a fun way to get through a storm.  I was pretty much left with only my thoughts to occupy myself and thinking about what was going on around me.  Yes, I have the internet and I kept a visual on the hurricane tracker, but that is not the same.  I really had no idea what was going on throughout most of the last three days.  My family keep me updated on throughout some of the storm, but it isn't the same.  On the news they just seem to show the worse of everything.  You hear about the flooding, the people dying, the trees falling on houses.  The news wants to draw you in so they show you the stuff they want you to see to keep you watching.  That is what made yesterday the hardest part for me.  It was knowing that things are bad, but I can't see for myself how bad I just have to rely on other people to interpret what they deem necessary for me to know.

Wind is picking up!