Hurricanes on the (Finished) Porch

When I think of the title of this post, I picture me sitting on my fancy new porch, in a comfy chair, with the breeze from our ceiling fans cooling my skin, while sipping on a tall glass of a strong, delightfully fruity drink while reminiscing about my vacation to New Orleans.  I picture neighbors walking their dogs and saying hello while children ride their bikes up and down the street, yelling about whose house they'll be going to next.

Unfortunately, my last week was nothing at all like what I described above.  If you live anywhere in the US (and probably anywhere overseas) you've most definitely heard about the destruction and devastation that Hurricane Sandy brought to the Northeastern United States, in particular New York City and New Jersey.

It was a doozy (yeah, I really said "doozy") of a storm - I know because I was working throughout, and, for the first time in my life, I was actually a little bit scared by the weather.  Seriously, I don't know how the residents of Florida and all the Caribbean Islands do it year after year - hurricanes are NO JOKE!!!  The flooding alone was devastating enough - but the winds are really what got my attention.  There was one point during the storm that I was inside a building, but could hear debris and roof-top mounted equipment being whipped around by the wind...and actually witnessed something hitting an overhead window panel and break the glass.  We managed to clear an entire floor of people in less than 15 seconds.  Thankfully nobody was hurt, but, there was a point where I wasn't quite sure if I was actually going to survive the storm.  There was another instance when I was in a car trying to locate an electrical substation in a parking lot that was in the process of flooding.  I opened the driver's door to get out of the car and was almost pulled out of the car because the wind whipped the car door open so fast and I wasn't expecting it.  I'm telling you people, it was serious.

There are many people out there who have lost everything they own - their homes, cars, clothes, everything!  If you are wondering where to donate, here's an ABC website with lots of links to organizations that are accepting donations: http://abcnews.go.com/US/hurricane-sandy-victims/story?id=17598687#.UJlTkm-QMuc

Thankfully, I'm one of the lucky ones who only sustained very minor damage to my home and was without power for a few days - my biggest complaint about the storm is having to throw away the melted ice cream that was in my freezer after holding onto it a few days in the vain hope that it would somehow be salvaged by the return of power.

As I've been updating this on a non-regular basis, it turns out that Greg and I did manage to finish our front porch project - literally the Friday before the storm hit (on Sunday).  We even hung up the mailbox and our house number to make our completion official.  We were both a tiny bit worried that the storm was going to damage our front porch masterpiece somehow.  Thankfully, our worries were all unfounded.

Here's a picture of our front porch, taken the Saturday before the storm.  Today, it looks pretty much the same except that the leaves have all blown off the roof and are now in a giant pile in front of our house on the curb.  Someday, when the weather is warmer and the threat of nasty weather is still a few months out on the calendar, I plan to actually enjoy a hurricane on my front porch...and I don't mean the weather kind!