I survived my first hurricane

Wow what a weekend!  Before I get back into more details of our move, today I want to share my first hurricane experience that happened this weekend.

Now being from the midwest, I have experienced tornadoes but not hurricanes.  Even in New York and Connecticut, we never had anything close to a hurricane before (although those places did get hit this time around, it isn't common).

So it was our good luck that the first month we live in North Carolina we have to deal with a hurricane!  I'm not going to lie - ever since I first heard there was a hurricane headed my directions, I was a little nervous.  However, since we don't live directly on the coast I was a little unsure of what kind of effect we would get out here.

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Still, even though we don't live on the coast, we really aren't that far away - only about two hours.  Considering Hurricane Irene was supposed to hit landfall directly east of us along the coast, it was a little too close for comfort.

Another factor that was confusing me further was the new channels and the areas they chose to cover.  Our news stations are based out of Raleigh, about an hour west.  I felt like they were only covering weather of those places directly on the coast or in Raleigh.  The coast was supposed to get hammered, but Raleigh would only get some rain and winds.  Being in between the two I wasn't sure what to expect.

With that all in mind I decided to stock up a bit.  I tried to head out to the grocery store early, but by the time I got there it was already swamped!  People were going crazy with carts full of bottled water, bread, spam (yuck!), and flashlights.  I got my small share of some non-perishable items and batteries, just in case our power went out.

Lucky for us we never lost power.  We woke up Saturday morning to loud wind and rain.  It was consistently bad all day long.  A few times our lights flickered and the cable and internet went out for a while, but over all we were fortunate.  There was some water leaking in through windows, but nothing major.

About halfway through the day we heard a loud crash.  We rushed out to our kitchen window to the patio and saw our brand new grill knocked over.  I had careful covered it up and secured it into a corner, but the winds moved it about 5 feet off the patio and into the grass.  I didn't want it to get blown around even more, so we picked it up and moved it into the kitchen.

The extent of the damage didn't look too bad.  The front was dented in a couple different places and the temperature gauge broke off.  Really the biggest pain was that the rain got into the drip pan, so we dragged a disgusting, dripping, greasy grill into the kitchen - or so I thought.  Now the biggest problem is well ... it doesn't work.  I tried to get it going yesterday for dinner and I was sadly disappointed.  Not sure what the problem is yet, but I guess I need to investigate more.

Our neighborhood didn't look too bad.  Maybe it was because we don't have any big trees.  Although our bushes were blown around a bit, they didn't have any damage.  The same can't be said about our neighbors.

Sunday when we went out for church, everything was calm and sunny but you could see the damage.  Lots of trees down and the roads were just covered in leaves and grass and although we didn't lose power, lots of others did.  Here are some photos I found on the City of Wilson facebook page.

Another bummer from the storm, I was supposed to have an interview today but the place closed for the day.  Booo.

Well anyways I guess we are glad to get through it safe and comfortable.  Many people's lives were disrupted and ruined by this storm.  Definitely praying for all those who have been dealing with and are currently still dealing with it.  Let's hope there are no more hurricanes this season!

Tomorrow I will get back into talking about our moving stuff and finally show you our place!