The Approach of Sandy and Denny

For a while it seemed like there were two big storms on a collision course to the mid-Atlantic and Eastern states. One storm, of course, is Hurricane Sandy, currently rated as a category 1 hurricane. The other was a n’oreaster set on a collision course with Sandy. N’oreasters, to my knowledge, aren’t given names. But it seemed to me that a name was required and, being a child of the 1970s, I couldn’t resist christening the storm “Denny.”

Sandy met Denny at the beach, after all.

It’s hard to know what to believe about these storms, Sandy in particular. Storms of any kind make big news, for some reason, and the news people seem to feed off this, the result being a tendency to blow things out of proportion. You might even called coverage of Sandy a media hurricane. Some reports are telling us that we should expect 10 inches of rain. Others say 5 inches. Most agree that there will be some amount of wind. The air will not be still, but no one can quite agree on how much wind. With all of the inconsistencies in the information being reported, I tend to settle on personal observation: what I can see out my window.

That’s not to say we haven’t prepared. We’ve been to the store over the last few days stocking up on supplies that we might need to weather a power outage for a couple of days. Much of it we already had. The stores have been busier than usual. On the other hand, we also live right next to a Target and Safeway, which came in very handy when we had those big blizzards a few years ago.

Power loss is the biggest concern but even there I’ve taken some extra precaution. My iPad and iPhone are currently sitting in their chargers on my desk, each fully charged. Should we loose power, I have 10 hours of power on my iPad and can continue to get writing and reading done. And I can use my iPhone to access the Internet over 3G (assuming that WiFi is down with the power).

I could be wrong, but I feel like the effects of Sandy are being overestimated in this area. Time will tell. The rain is supposed to start later this afternoon, which the first wave of the storm expected to hit tomorrow at some point (it varies based on who you ask).

In any case, I’ll be around, as usual, unless the power goes out. In which case I’ll be a little more scarce.