Hurricane Sandy - Frankenstorm

We have never had a storm that has hit so hard as the storm that hit this year, October 2012.  The name she went by was Hurricane Sandy (some called her Frankenstorm) and she was said to be 800 miles WIDE!  She was a raging storm and we had days to prepare, not knowing what exactly we were preparing for but knowing it was going to hit hard.  The predictions were so huge that the schools across a rather large region closed on Monday and Tuesday of that week.  We were away for Andy and Michele Burge's wedding in Hilton Head, South Carolina when we first were warned of the crazy approaching storm.  We considered staying an extra day because we were afraid we were going to be traveling through the storm to get home.  However, we decided to leave on Sunday and take our chances.  The weather was rather nice for the first 10 hours of the trip and then we did manage to run into some rain but nothing more than we have driven through on a regular stormy day.  The one thing that we were told by numerous people was to grab some extra jugs of water and non perishable food.  They were calling for power to be possibly out for days, so while we were traveling we stopped in Virginia to get some water at a local Wal-Mart.  The water aisle was bare. . .  .leaving only a few seltzer waters on the shelf.  It was a little alarming to see that but then we were told the local Rutter's up the road form our house had water still. 

We got home at 11:30ish that Sunday evening and immediately started to prepare.  We all bathed and got all clean so we could be clean to start our week without power. ;)  Then we filled the bath tub full of hot water so we could have water to flush toilets in case the power went out.  I filled a bunch of plastic containers with water and put them all in the freezer so they would freeze and then help pack them around the meat in the freezer so they would hopefully prolong the meat if we were out of power for awhile.  Then we tried to make sure we had flash lights and candles near and off to bed we went.  The next day we watched the news as the storm was rapidly approaching.  We kept waiting to lose power.  Christian finally got tired of waiting with us and went to bed.  Around 9:30 Monday evening we lost power.  The wind was howling around outside and it was making quite the ruckus.  The darkness was so dark and took us awhile to get the candles and flashlights, but then it was fine. 

Micah heard something downstairs so we went over to check it out. I walked around the corner and there he stood at the top of the stairs and he was scared.  He kept hollering, "Hello?" and then I started panicking.  He said, "the garage door is open" and sure enough, the door that went from the downstairs room into the garage was wide open!!!  I grabbed two LARGE knives and down the stairs we started, candles in one hand and knives in the other.  We went through the entire basement and then once we realized there was no intruders, we investigated the door.  Seems the pressure from the outside wind on the house had knocked the not so latched door open.  Made some sense but still rather scary.  After this, we prayed through the house and then went to bed. 

The most inconvenient part was that without power, our noise makers didn't work, so we had no white noise to sleep to. . . .making the wind sound so much worse, as we were falling asleep.  However, the next morning, 13 hours later, the power came back on.  We lost nothing food wise from freezer or fridge and we were so grateful for our power to be back.  We were blessed to also have no damage, but there were many that around us that did and we continue to think of them and try to rebuild.  Crazy when you think that the storms always seem to hit elsewhere and then all at once, they seem to be hitting us here more and more frequently. Grateful God kept us all safe. :)