My First Coastal Storm

My First Coastal Storm
Susan Schwarzkopf
SJVC Online
English 121
Karen Lawler
6/4/15

My First Coastal Storm

My First Coastal Storm

It was a warm August day, the calm before the storm. Hurricane Irene was coming up the
Coast headed right for me and my family in Delaware as a category 3 Hurricane. I love storms, but I have to say I was a little scared. I have ever been through a Hurricane before so this was a first. The local news, the weather channel and local stores were telling everyone how to prepare and what was needed.

I took my kids and as we were driving all the local businesses were boarding up there
Storefronts, windows and doors. Some of them had writing in spray paint that said GO AWAY
IRENE. After I saw that I was more worried than before. I thought , should I do that? Only a few houses had their windows boarded up. None on my street so I figured we would be fine. We arrived at the store to get stocked up on supplies like bottled water, batteries, candles, canned food and anything else I could find that I thought we needed. As we entered the store, there was a table with a display of supplies needed and lists with emergency numbers on it. We purchased everything we needed and spent a good amount of money, but it was needed. We all got into the car and headed home to finish preparing and wait for the Irene to come barreling through that nite. It approached night time and Irene was almost here. The winds were picking up and it
Had started to rain. The local news stations were on the air live with no interruptions. There were no television shows on any of the local channels, just the news talking about the storm approaching. It wasn’t that bad out yet so everyone went to sleep. About 7:00am I was woke up to a bush outside of my bedroom window banging up against the house. I jumped out of bed to take a look outside. The wind was howling and very strong. The rain was pouring down. I looked out the front door and there is a tall tree across the street in my neighbors yard and due to the gusty winds the tree branches were hitting the power lines causing it to spark. I jumped in fear and was hoping it wouldn’t cause a fire. After about an hour or two the lights started to flicker and then before we knew it the lights were out. We were in the dark! Everyone had their own flashlight (the kids thought that was cool). All of a sudden outside got real calm, there was no wind and hardly no rain. I thought it was kind of strange. So I ventured out and stood outside for a few minutes and all of a sudden I heard a loud noise like a train was coming. I had no idea what that was so I ran back