Disaster preparedness, a.k.a. Amateur Night at the Bijou

So the confluence of the hurricane and a nor-easter are almost upon us.  State of emergency throughout the state (and the rest of the northeast US), evacuations of coastal towns, local business and library  closings and events postponed.

Our neighborhood has been scurrying about trying to buy batteries, lots of luck there, water (why? why? we have great tap water, I put a gallon of it in the fridge), vital supplies such as a counter top for his mother's house, well, that just got among the neighbor's emergency list, and clear the decks, literally. 

I brought in my summer chairs for the Ds to guard,

tethered the patio table to the fence, removed all the bird feeders, suet thingies, S hooks and other stuff that would not be good blowin' in the wind. 

And pruned the wild cherry on the patio in the desperate hope of saving what's left of it after two previous storms took most of it away. And helped the neighbor, a newcomer to the notion of loppers (secateurs to brits) and my nice little Japanese folding pruning saw.  He was hugely relieved at realizing that 1. there are actual tools for doing what he needed and 2.  I owned them and offered to lend them any time.  They're the neighborhood pruning tools, really, though I own them.

He was torn between his wife insisting he get rid of the entire tree (half of which is mine) and me, begging him not to take off to much because of the birds.  We ended up with a fairly bald tree but with any luck not too much foliage to catch in the wind and tear off the branches. 

She, like a good Indian wife, reminded him pretty steadily that if he had kept up with the pruning and cleanup he wouldn't need to do all this at the last minute...and I kind of put in a word for him when she said he should have got the tree people in, to the effect that he and I saved them about a thousand dollars with a few minutes' work.  She liked that.

Another neighbor and I skated down the block and secured all the furniture for an older friend visiting his wife in the longterm care, and anyway he has a bad back. He'll come home this evening to wonder how his table got upside down, and all his chairs moved back to the fence where they won't fly through his patio window.

Meanwhile, back at my own homestead, I let the water stay in the bathtub from my shower, which yielded a few inches of greywater, fine for flushing with if it comes to that.  The other bathtub I thought I'd put clean drinkable water, just an extra over what I'd put in the fridge, only to find that the plugger wouldn't.  It's a push on it, it pops, type, which stays down sneakily until there are a few inches of water in the tub, then jumps up, haHA!  I tried to remove it entirely, turning and turning uselessly, and gave up on it.

Then  my handyperson friend stopped by to tell me it's her birthday, a big one, she isn't too keen about it, and accepted a cup of Oolong while we both moaned.  After admiring the latest needlework, and listening to my complaints about the bathtub, she said, oh shut up, I'll fix it, come on, show me.  And with one deft twist she yanked the thing out.  I claimed loudly that I'd loosened it up so she could do that...and I tossed it.

Now a replacement stopper I found in the kitchen is evidently holding up.  So this is good.  Neighbors with grills have said cooking is no prob if by chance natural gas goes out (very very rare occurrence), and people with firewood will hand it out if heat goes and we feel cold.  But the temps are in the fifties, so even with high winds it won't get all that cold, and with luck, rain but no ice.

Anyway, if there's sudden radio silence from here, chances are it only means the power is out, and the wireless attached to it, don't ask me how this works, has gone with it. And I'll check in as I can.

Around here the mantra at the end of every storm warning and email is: Stay home.  Stay dry.  Stay safe.

So, everyone, do that.