It was 3 days before Ol' Hallow's Eve, and we got the biggest fright. A massive (900 mile radius) dark mass loomed over the East Coast..... FRANKENstorm!!! This thing came out of nowhere and with great fury. None of the weather people could believe their eyes.... first they called it a storm, then a hurricane, then a tropical cyclone..... but we all know, it was FRANKENstorm!!!
Huge warnings were announced, evacuations were issued for much of the coastal areas, especially New Jersey and New York. The East Coast prepared for the worst. Including us. Our little town of Jamestown (considered south west New York if you look on the map) is only 7 hours away from NYC, and appeared to be in the path of this windy, wet beast. We were forewarned to expect the unexpected: high winds, falling trees, flooding (with the water level rising in the lake), and power outages. Being new to East Coast weather, including hurricanes, I was a little nervous..... okay not nervous, I panicked, just a little! I've been in many earthquakes, Southern California fires, tsunami warnings, even experienced a tornado warning (in Texas), but hurricanes?
Not familiar.
Thank goodness we had time to prepare though. We bought more flashlights, batteries, water bottles, ice (for our freezer in the garage in case the power went out and frozen food had to be saved). We filled the bathtubs with water (we have our own well and its pump is electric so if the power went out we would be without water.) Luckily, we have a gas stove and our heater operates on a water-heating-by-gas system, so we were fine there. And because our garage (as in outside temperature) was a 30-40 some degrees Fahrenheit, our food would stay cold, if the garage fridge stopped working.
On October, 29th 2012, Monday, we braced for this storm. The weather channel was on all day, tracking the hurricane, and everyone here was told to stay indoors. Once Frankenstorm hit landfall in the evening, and began to destroy the New Jersey, New York City, and Maine coastlines, we slowly got the boys ready for bed and resorted down to our first floor (basement) game room and adjoining guest room. Per my mom's advice, we decided to have a family slumber party downstairs, in case the strong winds knocked down any branches or the old large Maple trees surrounding our house should fall. We played it safe.
The boys were so oblivious to everything! Taj thought it was really fun to sleep downstairs and have a slumber party in the guest room. We made him a little bed out of the duvet, blankets, and pillows on the floor of the side of the guestroom bed. Jax slept in the pack n' play around the corner from us. The boys slept all night, with Jax waking for his usual feeding a little around 1am.
And with all of our preparations and fearing the absolute worst, when we awoke the next morning..... we were VERY relieved Frankenstorm cut us a break and missed us. We did not lose our power. Here was our storm hide-away:
And here was the view of the outside:
The aftermath: (for us, thankfully) Just a few broken branches, and the water level in the lake sure did rise! (some docks that had not been pulled out around the lake were submerged in water!)
All joking aside, we are so thankful we didn't lose our power, have flooding, or property damage, like most of the residents of the East Coast cities. No fallen trees, and no snow. Just a lot of rain and wind, and more rain and wind. Waking up Tuesday morning, and turning on the TV, it was like watching a war zone :( What an adventure and frightening experience this was during our first NY Fall!
Here are some photos of the horrible aftermath:
Atlantic City, New Jersey.....
Jersey Shore (boardwalk, pier, rollercoaster completely wiped out, homes underwater)
in NYC, streets and subway flooded, and uprooted trees
The crazy part of this whole storm, is that it made history with it being the largest cyclone to ever hit the East Coast, and that's now becoming the "new NORMAL". Could this be? We should expect storms and natural disasters of this size? WOW we are in for some scary times. Nevertheless, this was our family's FIRST hurricane experience, and probably not the last. We are prepared, we will be prepared for the next. And in addition, so glad we don't live near an ocean in a case like this. We live closer to Lake Erie, on Lake Chautauqua, and above all, our home is on higher ground, on a hill.... so no threat of flooding. Thankfully. We learned a lot during this experience, which makes us (hopefully) even smarter when the next natural disaster or weather crisis happens.
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