Musings on the Aftermath of Hurricane Irene

I have never been in a hurricane before. Never really thought that Pennsylvania was actively hurricane prone. (It isn't..most of the time we just get the rains after a hurricane hits NC or VA)But wow, according to the local news coverage the last two days you would have thought we WERE in NC about to get hit by the eye of the storm and all hell was going to break loose!

                 *Hurricane Irene Sweeps into the area--everyone panic!!!!***

I do not want to belittle the news agencies or the reporters or the weather people but in the end I think they over hyped the storm and spread unnecessary panic. I mean really, here I am 9 months pregnant and there is nothing on TV except the hurricane coverage. My hubby had to drive his younger teenager back up to the mountains where she lives for the school year and I was home alone with nothing but the TV for company. Guess who got spun into a bit of a tizzy watching all that hurricane coverage?? Ummm yeah, that would be moi.

I kept texting hubby--"Should I fill the bathtub with water?" "Should I tie down the grill?" "What if I go into labor in the middle of the hurricane?"

Needless to say he wasn't thrilled with any of it. He has lived through hurricanes, he lost a house to a hurricane back in 1999. And as he continued to tell me and reassure me--we live to far inland--at most it will be a severe storm do not work yourself up over this. Did I listen to my husband's wisdom? Ummmm No. I took upon myself to move all the patio furniture with my big fat preggo butt and then for the rest of the afternoon dealt with Braxton Hicks contractions and freaked out over the possibility of going into labor alone in the middle of the storm.

The darn hurricane didn't hit until about 4 am here anyways. I slept through most of it. We sustained no damage. Hell our garbage can didn't even move. The winds here were not as strong as predicted by the weather people and in the end it was really just a summer storm with wind gusts.

 Now I am not saying there wasn't damages in other places or that there were not power outages and unfortunately some people sadly lost their lives. It is the right thing to prepare for the worst, to take precautions, and be safe. But my whole problem with this "Storm of the Century" was the over-hyped and panic stricken mayhem that was reported and over blown by the media. I mean for crying out loud the mayor of Philadelphia was on the news saying that residents should be prepared to go without power for two weeks! TWO WEEKS???? Seriously??? It was a Category 1 hurricane when it hit NC by the time it worked its way up the coast it was being downgraded to a tropical storm. My husband said they got slammed harder in 1999 with Hurricane Floyd and most news outlets referred to that as a "rain event". Really? Because that was the hurricane that wiped out not just his house but an entire neighborhood on the banks of the Neshaminy Creek.

                *The Neshaminy Creek after a big storm*

But Hurricane Irene was "the worst storm to hit land in 50 years" according to one news report. So not the case. Yes the rivers and creeks have flooded, there are downed trees and power outages but nothing like the mayhem and chaos I expected after two days of non stop news coverage.

                 *Do news reporters have to do this???*

So please media people take your need to over blow a situation to the extreme and shove it. Just give me the facts pure and simple and let me take rational and sane precautions. Never again do I want to be 9 months pregnant and in a tizzy because there is no other pressing news to report but a storm.

                 *The actual Schuylkill River*

This morning we got up went to church, went food shopping and ran our regular errands and while a bit windy and misty with rain it wasn't too bad. Our town seemed relatively undamaged. The creek flooded the park, but that has happened in other storms and the Schuylkill is rising and rushing and will probably flood by tonight but we are not in a low lying area and there are no residences in my town that sit that low for it to be a major danger. So hopefully everyone has made it and will make it through the last remnants of the storm and be safe. No need to lose your minds.

                                            **I looked exactly like this in the a.m doing errands lol**    

Stay safe!

Much luv!
Laura