Next came the warnings of a hurricane headed for the East coast. At first, no one was worried, assuming it wouldn't come this far North because no hurricane had in 40 some odd years!! However, as the days passed things got stranger and eerier. News of Irene's path heading directly up the East coast spread fast. This being a very new experience for everyone, no one on base really knew what to expect.
Ryan and I decided to go out and get some supplies to prepare for the worst as we planned in sitting out this hurricane. This is when I started to get scared...every grocery store was quickly selling out of bottled water and other household essentials, and we were surprised to see that no where had any generators left in stock. Everyone was preparing for the worst, and I thought we had started our preparations too late. We managed to get the second to last generator in Dover and the surrounding cities! And we were able to load up on food and water.
As the days went on, we heard news that the pilots on base had been given a voluntary evacuation order as flooding became a possible side effect of Irene. This did not help my unhappy nerves about the whole thing. I watched uneasily as many families around us packed up and left while Ryan and I were stuck on base. Ryan, as medical personnel, had been ordered to stay.
Finally, midday on Friday a man in uniform knocked on my door and handed me an official letter with a map attached. The letter strongly advised us to get our family out of Delaware as our house just happened to be located in a flood plane and was in danger of being effected by 9-12 foot storm surges... This is when I officially freaked out!! I called Ryan in tears and told him what happened. He got off work and came home. We spent the rest of the day rolling up our brand new rugs we just bought, getting all our scrapbooks and pictures, and important documents out of the house, picking up our brand new furniture that we had been so excited about and putting it on cinder blocks. Ryan managed to find a small store that had bags of sand available and we put sand bags in front of the doors.
Everyone on base had been advised to put all valuable items on the second floor of their homes. Well, we don't have a second floor so we did all we could and as 9pm rolled around, we finally decided that we had to leave before it got any later. Poor Jane and Beckham were hungry, tired and so confused. We had a 3 hour drive ahead of us and we were already exhausted. The last look I took around the house was really hard for me. I know it is selfish...but all I could see was the new furniture we had spent months saving for in Utah to fill our new house, the 7 new rugs we had bought a week earlier to cover the carpets that I hated, Jane's princess dresses that she LOVES and has been collecting for two years now, Beckham's brand new winter clothes that we had bought at Old Navy the night before, Ryan's flat screen tv that we had recently bought that he was sooooo excited for...all the things we had worked SO hard to earn and collect and none of it we had time or room to bring.
So, we drove away with what we could and eachother and left all that behind FULLY expecting it to be washed away with Hurricane Irene's fury!! It was so hard for me. I kept wondering why we couldn't have moved here just a month later...we would have missed all the craziness then?! However, I felt good about getting away to a safer area...our house, after all, is 5 minutes away from beaches!! Soon after we left, it became mandatory that everyone on base be evacuated!! This made me feel even better about having left.
We drove for 3 hours on the back roads of Philadelphia to get to Lancaster. The roads were two lane roads that curved back and forth, and up and down and were surrounded by trees, fields, crops and farms. I had to literally slap myself in the face many times to stay awake. With both kids in the back resting peacefully, I didn't want to play loud music or roll all the windows down...my usual methods to stay awake! At around 12:30am we finally rolled into a hotel that actually had 1 vacancy...the handicapped room. We took it gladly and went to sleep. I had a very unrestful night sandwiched between Jane and poor Beckham who was struggling to sleep. That mixed with the constant visions of our house being swept away made for a long night.
The next day we decided to get our minds off of what was happening and we went exploring around Lancaster...a very cool city by the way! We went to an Amish farmers market and ate and sampled so many wonderful treats and foods! This was a covered wagon parked outside the market.
We drove all around the beautiful city as the kids had a welcomed nap and found this town... and had a good laugh!!
More and more laughs as we drove around this funny little town...
We were right in the heart of Amish country and seeing things like horses and buggies and out houses was not unusual...
I thought this covered bridge was beautiful!!
At 3pm we checked into a different hotel that we had made a back-up reservation for and I whipped out the projects to keep the kids occupied as the heavy winds and rains poured outside!! They were fussy and confused the whole time but troopers none the less.
That night at around midnight, Irene rolled right through Dover, Delaware. As the kids slept, Ryan and I were glued to the tv in the lobby watching coverage of the hurricane. Things were looking worse and worse for little Delaware and all the surrounding states. News of tornadoes touching down in Dover didn't help either!! Ryan and I were pretty much positive that our house and stuff was a goner!! I was so emotional and cranky, however Ryan had such a great attitude the whole time, I was so impressed with him and very grateful for him :)
The next morning Ryan was called and ordered to return to the base ASAP. As soon as we heard word that the roads were open again in Delaware we began the drive home with much trepidation as we weren't sure what we would find. As we drove we felt intense winds, saw many trees blown over, weren't able to cross two bridges because they were flooded and even saw several homes filled with water...it was so sad!!
However, as we entered Delaware the damage became less and less and as we pulled onto base everything looked like it held up very well. This was very encouraging. We finally pulled into our house to see that it had not been flooded and no damage at all had been done to our home!! We were immensely relieved and grateful...and honestly quite surprised after having seen so much damage on tv and on the drive home. We knew that we had been very blessed...many many people did not fair so well through Irene. We said a prayer thanking Heavenly Father for blessing us SO greatly and we got to work undoing all the work we had done a few days earlier to prepare for the worst!!
Here are some pics of the the house as we left it...
So, long long story short, this past weekend has been very eye opening for me in many ways. I can see more than ever how blessed we truly have been in our life and continue to be...I feel so much sadness and pity for anyone who has gone through any natural disaster...and not come out of it as lucky as we did. And I am mostly so grateful for my wonderful husband and beautiful children and my family and Ryan's family who were so concerned and so sweet and encouraging over the whole weekend. Life would be nothing without these things. All the stuff that I have is temporary and fleeting and ultimately NOT the key to happiness...it could be gone in a second. Real happiness is family and friends who love you and would do anything for you and you would do the same for them!!! This is what makes life great!
Thank you to everyone who called with words of encouragement and who worried and cared and prayed for us! I am sooooo grateful to have you in my life!!
