Distracted by the Weather

I've always said that I prefer hurricanes to other natural disasters because you can see them coming. 

Of course, part of the problem is that you can see them coming.  I hate thinking of all the time I've spent getting ready for storms that spared us.  But I am always grateful to be spared.

All sorts of people have been posting in all sorts of places about not getting concerned about a hurricane that's a Cat. 1.  But we've had lots of damage from strong tropical storms and weak cat. 1s, so I don't take anything too lightly.

We've had life disrupted from storms that missed us, but veered north or south.  These storms can generate a lot of rain, which can shut down airports and disrupt food delivery.

I remember thinking about how far our food comes during one of the disruptions.  If something happened and we were cut off from the rest of the peninsula for any amount of time, how would we survive?

During the difficult storm season of 2005, the grocery shelves quickly became bare and it took over a month for life to return to normal.  I always joke that I keep a fully stocked pantry, but I often find myself uninterested in the food that I have.  When we've had storms that have disrupted our food chain, I've often been too hot and wrung out from debris removal to eat much anyway.

I went grocery shopping on Tuesday.  Perhaps I shouldn't have bought that extra gallon of milk.  At the time, I didn't really think about the possibility of a storm hitting us.

Yesterday, I got the bills paid and the envelopes in the mail, just in case.  I know that the post office prides itself on delivering through any kind of weather adversity, but we've had mail service disrupted for over a week in the past.

I don't think it will be that bad this time, but the lessons of the past remind me that we can never be sure.  Storms that are erratic and poorly organized, like Erika, often hold nasty surprises.

I did finally get a poem written.  I have felt a sort of malaise through the month of August.  I'm hopeful that I'm coming out of it.  I've spent a lot of time this week going to various weather sites.  I've also started getting ready to mail submissions of poetry packets--it's almost September, after all!