Oh Sure, the drama of the “super storm” slamming into the Jersey Shore, destroying beaches, ruining homes, uprooting trees, snapping telephone poles – it’s all great news for the media. That’s the big story, the satellite photos, everybody preparing in advance, mobbing the stores, and then all the wonderful disaster photos of giant waves and flooding and ruination.

But here’s my reality.
First, for a change, we had lots of time to get ready. Everyone I know had plenty of water, and batteries, and an ungodly number of homeowners now have generators. I thought they couldn’t possibly have anybody left in New Jersey after last year who didn’t have a generator. Heck! My whacky landlord even bought one for the country house I was renting back then. He thought it would keep the oil burner going so the house wouldn’t freeze up; but however much muscle that thing had, it wasn’t enough to even get the oil burner to make a startup click. It kept the frig going, so I didn’t have to lose all my food, and I plugged my CPAP into it and slept on the living room floor, and that was good. It was not luxury, but it was good.

I am so glad I don’t live out in the country this year! It was lonely. That old stone house was cold. The stink beetles were embedded in the tops of the curtains and every exposed fold of wallpaper and every unsealed crack in a storm window. They filled the attic. The ghosts were always banging around and making noise. My cat had died and my son had moved back in with his mom. There was nobody to greet me at the door, nobody to come home to. And once the power was out, just that noisey generator, and the prospect of another gas run to the station down the road. After days like that, on my way home from work, I’d roll down my car window and listen as I pulled into the driveway. Power yet? If I could hear the annoying rattle and choking bursts of internal combustion engines, running in every garage up and down Route 523, then I knew, no power yet.

I live in town now happily, in a second floor apartment in an old house, on the Delaware river, far from the Jersey Shore. I pulled in my two window air conditioners and at the last minute, on Monday, located a couple of thick, old fashioned snap-in storm windows which I managed to pop into the two windows in my second bedroom “office”. I was really concerned the hurricane would blow in the old panes and dump rain all over my big iMac. So I felt better after that. Every other window, except the one in the little kitchen, had a storm window protecting and insulating it. When it began to rain late Monday, I felt fairly confident. (Sounds like the “Three Little Pigs”!)

Everyone said the power would go out by seven. I was working remotely (which is what IT geeks call it, when we sit at our computers, working from home), trying to get stuff done for my job. I couldn’t concentrate. The wind was picking up, and it was raining. My lights flickered a few times, and I tried to focus on what was most important to get done for work. I couldn’t. I got up and paced the kitchen. I set up my propane camping stove. When the power went, I would have no light, no way to cook on the electric stove, and no microwave. At least I would have city water (in the country you have a well, powered by electricity. Which means when the power goes, no toilet.) The apartment has oil fired steam radiators, but they use electicity at some point. I figured I would have heat and hot water for a day, maybe two. I had a lot of fruit. I made a giant fruit smoothee, figuring I could save it and drink it later when the power went. I started doing dishes (because who wants a dirty kitchen when you have no power?) I began to look forward to the cup of coffee I would have the next morning in the aftermath of the storm. I have everything… Wait! I have BEANS. I need to grind my coffee! I took care of that, placing the grounds in the frig. And thirty minutes later the power dropped. And it did not come back on.

Without wasting too many more words on details, the storm came that night, it blew like crazy, and made a lot of noise. There were all kinds of screeching and wailing sounds during the night. Even though I got up a couple of times to look, with all the wind and rain splashing on the windows, I could see nothing. Early in the morning while it was still dark, it sounded like the wind had found the little shed where all the renters dump their garbage. I heard garbage can lids zinging into trees, and rolling down the street. There was the metallic clunking of garbage cans bouncing across the church parking lot behind my house, and the solid crash as they hit trees or walls. Eventually it all stopped, and I slept.

I thought we must have been in the eye of the storm at 8 AM, because it was calm and even fairly light out. But that was it. There was surprisingly little rain. I cooked a big breakfast of food that I thought would go bad first – eggs, sliced turkey- too late for the mushrooms, tossed them – a pot of coffee. No cable, no TV, no Internet. But my cell phone worked. I wasn’t isolated yet.

To be continued….