{5.8 & Category 1}

Those were the headlines making it into the news this last week around here.  First off Tuesday at about 1:52pm people around our area experienced an earthquake registering 5.8.  It has been a while since something like that has happened around here so you can imagine the surprise of everyone.  Ryan felt the tremor while at the hospital.  The kids and I were shopping at Walmart and didn't feel a thing!!  We were coming off the freeway and were stopped at a light.  There was an office building on the corner and people were standing around in the parking lot like they had been evacuated.  But oddly there wasn't any emergency vehicles around like there would be if there had been a fire or a powdery substance found in the mail room.  It wasn't until we got home and Ryan called to check on us that we found out why all those people were standing around in the parking lot.  Had we been home we would have felt it.  It sounds kinda funny but I wish my kids could have felt it and experienced it.  They are kinda bummed too!!  Starting shortly after the earthquake we started getting reports of Hurricane Irene and it's projected path so we started getting ready for her arrival.  We had a few minor things to do to get ready.  Like gas up the cars, get new batteries for the flashlights and get some cash out for an emergency evacuation.  We already have food and water on hand so we weren't the ones frantically trying to find bread at the stores, which from reports bread couldn't be found anywhere.  Around our house are lots of trees and so our biggest concern was downed power lines and trees uprooting and falling on the house.  

This was the calm before the storm.  Saturday morning it started raining a little but the worst of the storm wasn't suppose to hit our area until late Saturday night and into Sunday morning.  We hunkered down and hung out at home all day.  The kids played and Ryan and I put together our bucket list for things to do while we live on the east coast (it is pretty extensive, I hope we can do it in three years).  We kept thinking at any moment the winds would pick up and we would lose power.  Losing power had another downside.  School starts tomorrow and if the power was out we would for sure not be starting the school year on Monday.

The only thing that worried us in the back yard was our trampoline.  We really didn't want it taking off and landing in Mrs. Anderson's (our 90 year old neighbor) house.  It already had anchor straps so we just took down the safety net and tied that down to the frame.  It looked like it survived the storm pretty much intact, much to the relief of the kids. 

Right on time the winds picked up and the rain came down in sheets, late last night.  I was worried that a tree would land on the house and I wouldn't be awake enough to know it until it was too late so I stayed up downstairs watching the news until about 2:30am.  I did fall asleep here and there but I would wake up when I would hear a big gust of wind and I would watch the trees with baited breath.  Thankfully this is all we woke up to this morning.  Little branches and lots of leaves everywhere.  We did have our power go out sometime around 4am but it came right back on and then later we had some surges where the power acted like it was going to go out but didn't.  We are thankful for that!!

This is our back porch.

The side yard next to our other neighbors.  There were a few sizable branches that had fallen but none of them did any damage. 

The other worry associated with this storm was flooding and flash floods.  We again were lucky in this area.  We didn't have any flooding in our basement.  The only standing water we have is in our back yard, far away from our house.  We feel extremely blessed to be safe and otherwise unaffected by this storm.  We know so many others are without power and have flooding in and around their homes.  As we prepared for this storm we tried to calm our children's fears about what we would do in an emergency.  We had prepared long before this storm ever came, which I believe is so important.  We have food storage complete with water and other methods of cooking and sustaining ourselves.  We had budgeted emergency money and had that on hand.  I was thankful that we didn't need to worry about those things, they were already taken care of.  We weren't frantic yesterday and I know that is because we prepared long before there ever was an emergency.  While we said our family prayers last night we gave thanks for our safety but also for a living prophet that has always counseled us to be prepared, to put a little aside for a time of need.  We feel blessed and we are thankful.