October 29 - Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy hit- rain first.  We thought we were used to it in the winter, didn't seem too bad, went grocery shopping as the last grocery store we were in was lousy, Dalton didn't like it.  Didn't have any good stuff so we didn't replenish our supplies and the cupboards were pretty bare.  Well, the store we went to in Gettysburg had been hit by hurricane hoarders, many of the shelves were empty and there wasn't a bottle of water to be found.  We brought our meager supplies home and settled in for the night.  It rained all night and each hour it seemed to get heavier.  At 2:30 AM there were pools of water everywhere but by 8:00 AM those pools had turned into rivers.

While we were having breakfast someone from the park knocked on our door to tell us they were closing early.  I did the dishes while Dalton checked the road and weather conditions, at this point it was still only raining.

We got in the car and went looking for Verizon as we had no way of communicating.  The Wi-Fi quit sending messages, funny enough we could receive them, we could look things up but we couldn't do anything else.

Verizon is just like any other communication office/store, you seem to be there for hours.  The person in front of you always has the biggest problems, just like at the bank or a grocery store.  Anyway, when it finally got to be our turn we purchased a pay as you go phone so we felt a lot better knowing at least we could make a phone call if we had to.

While looking for the Verizon office, we covered quite a bit of area and there are a few properties flooded already.  Anyone who has a stream or a pond can kiss their basements good-bye.

Now the wind started and we had to bring the living-room slide in as the wind was really buffeting us around. 

I decided I wanted to be sleeping when we ended up in Kansas and I made Dalton come with me - didn't want to wake up in Kansas alone.  I put the ear plugs in, stopped the sound of the rain but not the buffeting of the wind.  However, I did fall asleep fairly quickly, Dalton did not.  He said the wind died down and the rain even slowed up, but waking again to rain although no wind so far and by 9:30 AM we are able to put the slide back out.

By the way, most of the town was shut down.  Walmart was running with half staff and the larger grocery stores were open.  There is a Factory Outlet here also - only a few of the stores were open.  No one was shopping, hardly anyone was on the street.  I have never before seen a Town shut down, and for 2 days.  It's kind of scary.