This week started out a bit tense with my first hurricane watch. Attached to the news, our eyes got bigger and bigger as the Tropical storm in the Atlantic was upgraded to a category 4 hurricane dropping right over the top of Washington D.C. I have never been in a hurricane before and here we were in week two of our East Coast internship and we were being told to go into emergency mode. Talk about getting thrown into the fire…or storm in this case!
I found myself checking Hurricane Florence’s path a couple of times a day seeing if anything had changed and change it did. Every twelve hours there was a new report with a new prediction, it will hit D.C., then it will miss us completely, then we were on the outskirts of the storm etc. I began asking all the locals, “what will you do about the hurricane coming this week?” To my surprise everyone seemed quite calm about the whole thing. The most common answer I received was “just stay indoors”. Stay indoors? Is that all? Shouldn’t I be doing things, like buying 72 hour kits, filling my bath tub with water, buying a 3 day supply of non-perishable food so that if we can’t go out anywhere, we don’t have to?
Sure enough, throughout the week we found notes on our door with emergency preparedness plans: Have at least three days worth of food, water and a tank full of gas in your car. Clear out anything on decks, driveways, porches or balconies that easily fly away due to strong wind and rain.
Here we are now, Friday afternoon waiting for the storm to hit the city and so far the gray clouds have been the only thing willing to show its face. While we are still praying for the safety of our friends and family and all in the states who are truly getting hit by Florence, (now downgraded to a category 2 hurricane) I have to say I’m happy that so far Florence was just a good test run for me in hurricane country. Hope everyone stays safe!
Click here if you are looking more information on how to prepare for a hurricane. How did hurricane Florence effect you?
