Surviving the storm - with my ruffles intact!

The Frill Zone was caught up in tropical storm Sandy. From the calm before Sandy arrived to the aftermath of the storm, it was a memorable and at times, scary experience. I don’t live close to the coast line enough to be effected by storm surges and flooding, so the concern by the authorities was the winds.  My family and I were without power for almost 3 days and as I update the blog, there are still thousands of people in my county without power.

A tree branch that was very close to an electrical pole wire succumbed to the force of the winds and gradually began leaning on it. Sparks started to fly out every so often but it wasn’t until later that evening, it went “crazy”.  The winds were stronger and the wire was becoming more unstable. The sparks came faster after each other and than the whole thing lit up. It was so bright that it lit up the whole street and my entire apartment. The sound of electricity was so loud and terrifying as the wire fell apart and became live. 

After a loud bang, the street and local area lost electricity. The street where the live wire fell was on fire and it was so hot that it melted the asphalt of the road! It was until the next morning, after my dad put batteries in a radio, that we learned of the damage in our county and that of others in the Tri-State area. We were fortunate to just lose power, because many areas lost hundreds of homes to flooding and fires. Thankfully we still had hot water too! 

There was no power for almost 3 and my parents and I adapted to it by saving what food we could with a cooler of ice and keeping ourselves busy with board games and charades. I’m so used to have my technology all around me, always on and ready to go, that at first I was a little lost without. I remembered how I was before I had all of these gadgets and I knew that I don’t have to depend on all of this tech to survive and go on with my life. 

It’s amazing how much we got done without the electricity. Since we couldn’t watch tv, play video games, or be on the computer, we were much more focused with packing for the move! I

I am very thankful for the electrical workers who got power back for our street as well as those helping people in other areas. It was a tough 3 days but my family and I made the best of it. I know that there are many families and people out there who still don’t have power but with much more devastation.  I’m grateful that no one in my family was hurt and that our county wasn’t severely damaged by the storm.