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!

Weekend Recap: Hail and Tornadoes

My title kind of says it all.  Our weekend was full of yucky weather - rain, hail, and even tornadoes.

It all started on Friday after work...

About a week ago I finally went ahead and bought a new pair of workout sneakers.  I had found a pair I thought would be really great and looked cute too.  Unfortunately they only had them in an 8.5 size, and most of the sneakers I tried on were most comfortable in a 9.  Somehow I talked myself into thinking that the smaller size would fit me.  When I got them home that day I wore them around the house and realized they were too tight.  Dang.  Our store in town did not get my size on their shipment this week, so I thought it would be a good idea to see if any other stores along the way to the in-laws place would have them as we would be headed there for Easter weekend.  No one did, except the store in Jefferson City, MO (which is about 30 min south of Columbia, and not on the way to the in-laws at all).

Anyways, back to Friday.  I decided it would be a good idea to run down to Jefferson City after work to get these shoes.  Then rush back to Columbia to pack up real quick and head out to the in-laws for Easter.  Getting to the store, things went great.  I made great timing, they were already reserved for me, and I was out of there quick.  However when I got just north of Jefferson City, my boss sent me a text that said, "I really hope you are close to home.  There is a tornado headed straight toward Ashland."  I was driving straight toward Ashland with no where to stop along the way.  The clouds started to look scary and I was getting a little freaked out.  I called the hubby to calm me down and that is when I started raining, and then hailing.  Finally I had to pull off to the side of the road with all the other cars, and the hail just kept pelting my car.  It cracked my windshield and put dents on the top of my car.

So these are the cute shoes I got:

And this is the crack in my windshield (which has since gotten bigger over the weekend):

Was it worth it?  I am not sure.  $250 deductible will fix the windshield and the dents on my car, but the shoes were only $60.

But the story doesn't end here.

Once I got home we had to make the decision on whether to go to southern Illinois that night or wait until the morning.  We saw the weather report and there didn't seem to be any more weather coming behind us, so we packed up and left about 7pm.

We didn't take into account the weather in southern Missouri that was moving up and over, instead of over.  What ended up happening was we caught up with the weather just outside of St. Louis.  We heard on the radio and from the in-laws about the tornado warnings, and I insisted we get off the highway at Lake St. Louis, about 25 minutes from the STL airport.  If you have seen the news at all recently, you would know that the tornado actually touched down at the airport.



Lucky for us that we stopped or we would have probably driven right through when the tornado hit.  After waiting 45 minutes for the warnings to lift, we headed out on I-70 which was our best option since 270 was closed both ways.  It wasn't long before we hit traffic.  We barely moved for 3 hours.  It took us that long to go about 5 miles at which point they were re-routing people off of I-70.  We managed to find an alternate route there, arriving at 1:45 (6 hours and 45 minutes for a trip that normally takes 3 hours).

The rest of the weekend was a bit less eventful, but still full of flood warnings.  Easter managed to stay nice enough for us to get out and enjoy service at the in-laws church and a little visiting before we took off with the threat of more thunderstorms headed that direction.

I am so over this crazy weather!

Happy Monday and have a great week.

Loving this Midwest Weather

I have lived in the Midwest for most of my life but never have I seen such crazy weather as I have this winter.

Pretty much since winter began, we have just been a dumping ground for snow.  Schools have been out of session so many days this year, it is impossible to make them all up.

Then in February we got a legit blizzard, for real!  It started snowing at 8am on February first and by the next morning we had 17 inches!

Out our backdoor

Out the front door

Our cars the next morning

We didn't even have a snow shovel at our apartment, so we had to dig our cars out with garbage cans!  Thank goodness we weren't the only ones - most of our neighbors didn't have shovels either.  

For a while the weather died down a bit.  We even got some weather in the upper 60s and 70s.  Hello spring!  But still people were talking about more snow.  According to the Farmers' Almanac, they were predicting another huge snowstorm for Missouri, and all these Missouri people really listen to their Almanac.  My co-worker said her parents plan their lives around it - like the best time to stop smoking or the best time to have a kid.  I personally thought it was crazy and decided not to believe there was no snow coming.

This past Sunday night, I was checking the weather for the week as I always do before bed.  Looking at Monday's forecast it looked cold and rainy - and then I heard them say snow.  Wait - I must have been tired!  Did they really say snow?  Yes and there was snow.  Wet, heavy snow.  It snowed all day Monday.

The initial accumulations were only supposed to be a few inches, but half way through the day a winter weather advisory was issued with it reaching up to 8 inches.   It is hard to say how much we really got since most of it was a sloppy, slushy mess.  I soaked through my flats and ended up wearing my sneakers at work all day (it was Spring Break for students so no one was here to see me breaking dress code rules).

Then yesterday the sun was shining, most of the snow melted, and it felt like spring again!

Today it will be up to 60 degrees and tomorrow 70!

While I am not usually a spring/summer lover (I love the crispness of the fall), I am ready for this nice warm weather!  I am even on board for the hubby looking at jobs in the south, preferably the Carolinas.  Hopefully this Monday's winter weather was the almanac's predicted snow fall and we can move on.  I don't think I can take much more!