And not a ramen noodle to be found.

I took Betty’s advice and stocked up on beer—and the kid made chocolate chip cookies. So we’re all set.

Btw, according the NYT Hurricane Tracker, the storm should be passing right over our house. See you all in Oz. (Fortunately, I’m all paid up on my Lollipop Guild dues.)

Beer and chocolate chip cookies—who could need more? I hope you have a cozy, dry hurricane, J.

It’s been steady showers in MD for a while. I’ve been running around outside messing with the downspouts. That should help keep the water level in the basement to less than one inch.

J - Good luck, God Speed and try to land the farm house on mHaggie Gallagher.

Note for the next catastrophe: jalapenos. If you’re planning to get through a natural disaster using nachos as a food source, jalapenos are essential.

Also, J, you needed someone to remind you to stock up on beer? I’m reasonably sure that one’s in the FEMA guidelines. Brownie can correct me if I’m wrong on this.

Also. After the last catastrophe I did get ramen noodles in case I needed to hole up for a few days. That’s still the only case of thinking ahead, though.

HTP, funny you should mention that~ I was just hoping to land on Amy Suckswind!

Here’s to you and the S.O.  tucked up nice and cozy, and your basement as dry as a Teabagger’s, er, powder horn.

@Alt: Has none of your neighbors some spare sriracha sauce? A little dab?

Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, Mrs. Polly.  I have a bottle of something called Tiger Sauce that sounds pretty similar to sriracha sauce.

More importantly, that gives me a line to try out on an attractive and intelligent lady down the hall from me.

Alt, are you gunning for the special “hurricane hook-ups” edition of Penthouse Forum?

All of youse on the East Coast, make sure you’ve got sufficient ballast, bombast, beer, brie, brio, bravado, and all of that to get through the storm!

Hatches battened here.  About ready to fill the bathtub.  I bought no bottled water because there was none to be had anywhere near here.

I expect we’ll be fine, but the trees behind the house have been through hell in the past few years.  Here’s to hoping they stay upright and off my roof.

wasabi peas and sushi—solid disaster staples. and pinot noir. of course. I’m ready.

That reminds me, Oblo. Do you have a cup of sriracha sauce I can borrow?

Good luck to you all!

After Ike (what is it with I-storms), we were out of power for 16 days and cable/Internet for 6 weeks.  It was truly awful.  Not a bit of damage to anything on our property other than a few downed branches, but plenty of neighbors were not so lucky.

The best advice I can give is to make sure you know where your car charger for your cellphone is.  And to know who on your block has a gas stove so you can cook there.  Bring that beer you’ve stockpiled and share.

Good point about sharing, DB. We made lasting friendships with some neighbors we hadn’t really had much contact with in the aftermaths of the 2004 hurricanes. We were all better off pooling our resources.

Don’t share, hoard. 

If it takes a disaster for you to meet new people, you were probably doing just fine alone.

Thanks for the good wishes. D-Day is supposedly early tomorrow morning per Know Before You Go and the Weather Channel. Mostly worried about a tree slamming through the roof of our bedroom. (Yeah, I’ll be sleeping well tonight.)

As for being told to buy booze, apparently I did not have my priorities in order. But Betty set me straight.

@HTP and Mrs. Polly, If I had my druthers, I’d land the house on Rush Limbaugh, but it probably wouldn’t make a dent. (Really bumming I gave my ruby slippers to Goodwill.)

J,

we had to get out in the middle of the hurricane and fix drainage off the back concrete patio.  I have honestly never seen so much water moving so quickly.  It’s kind of indescribable.  8 years earlier, we came within a few inches of flooding during Tropical Storm Allison, which stalled out over Houston and dumped 24 inches of rain into the bayou across the street from my house.  That water had no where to go, the storm drains started regurgitating rain and odd places all over the city flooded, because it was like nature was repeatedly wringing out spoges over all of us.

You learned that a few inches of higher house placement made all the difference, a few blocks away people had three feet of water in them.

Hurricane Ike, on the other hand, moved more quickly, so we had less change of flooding, but the winds were so high they were pushing the water under the door.  And watching the trees sway and move?  Amazing.  They’re not really meant to do that—but those old pines had no trouble bending.  The oaks were a little more problematic.

We put the mattresses in the hall and everyone slept there.  The kids slept through the entire hurricane.  I of course, was obsessively checking on trees and water and monitoring windows (which we had boarded up).

We were saved major flooding because we ended up with a direct strike, for us the nightmare would have been an eye 50 miles to the east, putting us on the dirty size.  Those last minute jags and jostles make a huge difference.

That should say sponges not spoges.  I don’t know what a spoge is, but I wouldn’t like to touch it.

@dewberry, Oh. My. God. I may have to have the spouse (who says we are not going to lose power—uh huh) set up the air mattress in the hallway.

Off to take a hot shower (which is sort of ironic—?—considering it’s pouring rain outside). If you don’t hear from me, it’s been fun knowing you.

(Should I be concerned that the verification word is “dead81”?)

Speaking of thinking ahead…

Damn, a prez who thinks ahead!  Whoda thunk it?  Pity he’s still black though.  ;-)

Dewberry, you have scared me to death.  Hang in there East Coast Roasters!

Didn’t mean to scare you.  Your hurricane is moving fast and degrading as we speak.  Hopefully you’ll have no more awful of a story than hearing some strange howling and having to sleep on an air mattress in the hall and figuring out your bones are too old for that!

But the reason everyone freaks out is that hurricanes are just really unpredictable and for all our fancy forecasting and equipment and stuff, they just sorta do what they want, like a toddler on a giant sugar binge.

But hopefully your toddler crashes and burns and decides it would like to take a nap.

There’s a tornado near Tom’s River, NJ. The Emergency Broadcasting Service just broadcast the warning.

They said to get to an inside corner of the basement, under a table or bench, cover yourself with a blanket. This is about 10:15 to 10:40, as it’ll be moving about in that region.

Posted this on Strange’s thread above as well.