My First Big Storm

Okay, so. I have a confession to make.  I have lived in SOLA for 14 years and this is my first Hurricane.  I know, I'm a weenie.

Katrina would have been my first real storm.  We lived & died by The Weather Channel that week and I had a pretty good idea of the SIZE of the storm, but had no idea what any of it meant. TWH, who was our resident Hurricane expert having gone through Hurricane Andrew, kept telling me it was no big deal and so I continued on with my life. I cleaned the bathrooms. I did laundry. I fielded phone calls from friends & family. The first one being from my friend Marti who lived in Japan at the time. I answered the phone to her yelling "WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU STILL THERE!?!?!".  I STILL didn't think it was a big deal.  TWH said everything was FINE.  I tend to take everything my husband says at face value so I thought everything was cool.

Until about 3 in the afternoon.  That's when TWH comes into the bedroom where I was folding clothes and sheepishly says "Y'know... I just got a good look at the storm...  It's a LOT bigger than I thought...  Maybe we should go to Mom & Dads".

I stood there staring at him for a few seconds before I yelled "Pack a bag!!  We have to leave!!"

In hindsight, I could have handled that better.  TB was 6 and kinda freaked out.  He packed his suitcase with nothing but shirts & underwear & I packed like we were never returning.  I checked TBs bag.  TWH checked MY bag.  We finally got everything we needed to leave and jumped into the van.

Out normally 4 hour drive took 8.  We arrived safely in Minden around midnight.  We watched the horror of Katrina on the news.  We swam in the pool when we weren't riveted to the television. We were safe. We were lucky.

Now we're facing down Issac.  We're not going anywhere.  Again, TWH says it's no biggie.  Again I am taking him at his word.  Because that's what I do.  I'm kinda nervous though.

I hope I have enough alcohol...