The Ike and Hanna Revue, Act 2

I went to bed at 1:00 this morning. Kittens, don't ever download Mah Jong Quest from Yahoo! Games. It's too damn addictive, and each round can last for hours. As I went to bed, ready for some delicious, precious zzzzz's. I was so tired I didn't need to fall asleep to any television, just the sound of rain falling against the siding of my condo.

That's when the wind picked up. A lot.

I started to freak out. Keep in mind that Connecticut has not seen a major hurricane since Hurricane Bob in 1991. I completely forgot what it's like to be in a major wind storm. And there are trees behind my condo complex. I started wondering if my homeowner's policy was up to date. I immediately thought of Jane Redmont, who had a tree fall on her house only a week ago. As a result of the intermittent wind, rain, and worry, my sleep was not restful. My alarm went off at 6:45, and I got up and reset it for another 45 minutes.

(One word about my alarm clock: I've had it since high school, and I purposely broke the snooze button a long time ago so I wouldn't be tempted to keep pushing it whenever the alarm went off. I am not a morning person. I also put the alarm clock across from my bed, the theory being that if I had to get up out of bed and walk across the room to turn it off, I would be forced to start the day. Neither theory has been able to prevent me from sneaking in an extra fifteen minutes of snoozing in the morning).

Well, knowing I had to be at church at 9:30 for choir practice, as well as organizing coffee hour, I forced myself to rise at 7:30. When I walked to my car, I noticed...well, not much of anything. I was expecting to see twigs and branches on the ground, as well as huge puddles. But there wasn't anything. However, one area did get a soaking--the front seat of my car. I left the windows open, and the driver's seat was soaked when I got open. I didn't have time to change, so my jeans were drenched by the time I arrived at church.

At church, the storm showed its effects. It affected something electrical with the fire alarm, and it was going off when a fellow choir member arrived. Five minutes after I got there, the fire department arrived. Firemen were in the building for ten minutes, then we got the all clear. We don't know why the alarm went off, nor do we know why our security system didn't automatically call the fire department to notify them that the alarm went off. Fortunately, that was just a minor blip in the Homecoming service for the year. The service was great, and coffee hour was a hit. My friend baked danish, turnovers, and biscotti, and also brought veggies, hummus, and ranch dip. I brought fresh apples, peanut butter, and two kinds of fruit juice. This is what you get when you get two Italian girls to do coffee hour. We love teaming up to do stuff like this.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the Nutmeg State, Hanna made her presence known. Bethel had nearly seven inches of rain during the storm. Trees crashed through homes in Old Saybrook and Haddam, and many homes throughout the state were without power. If you want to read more about it, you can go here and read the account from our local CBS affiliate, WFSB Channel 3.

So Hanna is now gone and is history, but now the United States has Ike to worry about. He's now a Category 4 storm and has prompted evacuation of the Florida Keys. According to the National Hurricane Center, Ike's currently at the eastern tip of Cuba and is tracked to hit the Gulf Region soon. Satellite pictures of Ike show a well-defined eye; that's always an indicator, at least for me, that this is not a storm to mess with. It's already done some damage in Haiti. Ray Nagin, mayor of New Orleans, is worried, because he feels that not as many people will leave for Ike the way they left for Gustav.

And that's just the Atlantic hurricane zone. The Pacific is a different story. Right now the Pacific hurricane zone has Tropical Storm Lowell. Why don't we hear as much about Pacific hurricanes as Atlantic ones? Why isn't southern California as affected by them as much as Mexico is? Can someone answer these questions for me?

And so, this concludes the Ike and Hanna revue. Ike's going solo now; Hanna has now left.

(I know that's a cheesy way to end a post, but I couldn't think of anything else).