Batten down the hatches

Tomorrow, I leave for California with my family. Today, I battened down the hatches in preparation for hurricane Irene. The brilliant sunshine of the day was a bit ominous as the storm heads up the East coast. While the storm has just been downgraded, it still represents a bit of risk to my home since I won’t be here to address any issues should they come up. I took the day off to pack and it turns out that I was quite a bit busier than I expected.

Moving all possible projectiles into my garage was just the start. I emptied my pool a few inches and left the evacuation hose out. If the pool floods, I may be able to have someone turn on the pump to empty it a bit more. I secured my BBQ to our jungle gym. I might even secure the jungle gym to the trees in my backyard. I have a special pump that activates every 60 seconds and turns off after a few seconds if it detects no water. It wasn’t set up right so I set it up properly and ran the hose away from my house. If a tree falls on my house or we lose power then there is not much I can do. Flooding from the excessive rain is my main concern and with the pump set up, there is little more I can do.

The goods news is my mom is going to ride out the storm in my house while I’m away. Her house is more or less in the flood zone so it’s smart to be out of there so you don’t have to evacuate during the storm.

I wish all my NY friends luck this weekend.