Luckily we had plenty of notice that Irene was heading our way. Back in June we had a severe thunderstorm (nearby it was a tornado) and we lost power for 3 days, 70 hours to be exact. Thankfully we were able to stay at my mom's house just 20 minutes away. This time I knew if we were going to be out of power most of the state probably would and we would have no where to go. Thanks to a great article in Parents Magazine I started making an emergency kit. Stocked up on water, non-perishable food, first aid kit. Most of this I probably should have done a long time ago, but we really don't see many natural disasters in CT so I never thought too much about having an emergency kit. Since we were told we could be out of power for up to a week we found a generator before the rest of the state starting panicking and they were all out. When I was at Target on Thursday I was the only one stocking up on water and other things. Everyone else was just doing their normal Target shopping. I'm so glad we were prepared because I heard how everyone else was going nuts trying to fight over the last water bottle or container and those on lines for several hours waiting for a new shipment of generators.
On Saturday Chris spent the morning securing out outdoor furniture and making sure there were no projectiles out there. We filled the bathtub with water (for flushing toilets) and several pots in the kitchen. We have well water so no power means no water!
We woke up Sunday morning to crazy wind and rain. We brought the kids all downstairs in case any trees were to fall on the house. We watched the news until the power went out around 6am.
I attempted to do some long exposure shots with my tripod.
Chris got the generator hooked up to some essential items. Of course that included the computer and thanks to having DSL we were still able to get online. We spent the morning watching live feed on our local news station and playing in the playroom with the kids. They had no clue what was going on. Mason was not impressed with Irene.
When I was at Target preparing for the storm I made sure to get Mason a new toy. He picked out a set of cars. He LOVED playing with them and it sure helped when he started getting crabby.
On Monday I was in desperate need to venture out of the house. There are a million different back road ways to get to us and I swear at everyone I had to turn around because of trees and wires down. It took me an hour but eventually I was able to find a way out into town.
While we had no power we played outside and even had a small party. Friends that used to live on our street were visiting family. We ordered a bunch of pizzas and escorted everyone out by flashlight.
We were estimated to not get power back until Tomorrow! Luckily that estimate was wrong and after being out for 5 full days we got it back Thursday night.
Our local tv station did a video of photos and videos sent in to them. You can view it here. We are so lucky that the worst that happened to us was to be without power for 5 days.
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