Hurricane Sandy

Things don't look so bad from where I'm sitting. The sun is shining through my kitchen window, I am nice and warm, and my daughter is blissfully playing in her playroom. It's easy for me to forget about the devastation all around my state and neighboring states.

We made it through the storm with no damage. The winds were literally frightening as the entire house creaked and shook. We were one of the very few lucky ones to keep our power with only minimal outages here and there. We watched from our window as transformers blew and lit up the sky. Neighbors had trees on the houses, roads were (and still are) closed. We were lucky we didn't get much rain. It really helped with the areas that flood.

My parents lost power early on in the storm. So they hustled my grandparents over to us before it became unsafe to drive. My parents went back to their cold, dark house to keep an eye on it and so my dad could respond to fire calls from his department.

But we all made it through just fine. Unlike my grandparents who live out on Long Island. They evacuated and haven't even been home yet. They received word from a neighbor that their house had 5 feet of water in it. It's a ranch, so basically everything they own has been lost. The refrigerator was over on it's side, the doors were so swollen from water that they had to force them open. There is no power, gas, or anything.

Tomorrow they are going to try and get home to survey the damage. My parents are going to try and get out to help them. With the gas shortage around here it won't be easy to get to them. But they are determined. My mom tried to stock up on food for them, but most food stores are running on generators and don't have much on the shelves. There are no working traffic lights in the area surrounding us, making it dangerous to try and get around.

And just imagine.... we aren't even near the Jersey Shore. I can only imagine the devastation there.....

I hope all of my readers who were in the path of this storm are safe and warm.