Irene

8pm-ish:

Back tonight from Niagara Falls to Hurricane Irene territory, so our vacation from the vacation^* will have to wait 'til next Tuesday or Wednesday . . . or possibly Thursday . . . or whenever running water, electricity, and civil order have been restored, haha.

Ed's just home from Costco: not a single loaf of bread on the shelves, or any D batteries, either.

Meanwhile C. and I are ogling hurricane coverage on CNN, where a hurricane analyst (hurricane analyst?) was just asked, How bad is it?

Answer: "It's not a doomsday scenario." His exact words. Not a doomsday scenario. What can that possibly mean? How large is the set of all things that are not a doomsday scenario? And, more to the point, what kind of supplies does a person need to cope with an event that is bad enough to shut down all subways, trains, and airports but not bad enough to be a doomsday scenario?

Thunderstorm, strong winds, and scattered electrical outages-type supplies?

Or Northridge earthquake-category supplies? 

Moving right along.... Now they're telling us Hurricane Irene is as big as Europe. As big as Europe and spinning on its axis with winds up to 100 miles per hour, but minus the looming sovereign defaults and the ECB.

So I'm guessing Costco is probably fresh out of gas generators, too.

The FEMA guy is talking. Disasters are expensive, etc.

More weather people... "This is a deadly and giant storm"..."It's going to be a 3-ring circus"... this last from a professor wearing a bow tie.

Now Ed's back from getting gas. Heard on the radio that in New Jersey, if you don't evacuate you're supposed to write your social security number and the name of your next of kin in indelible ink on a 3x5 card and put it inside your left shoe. That's assuming Costco in New Jersey still has 3x5 cards and Sharpie pens in stock, of course.

I need batteries.


^* for passers-by: vacation in our household means air and/or car travel with 3 boys, two of whom have autism. Hence: vacation from the vacation.