The Hurricane

Our first Sunday at church, the Bishop pulled us into his office so he could get to know us a little bit better. We filled out our transfer of records request form, and then he asked us what our evacuation plan were. What? We were a bit confused. Our biggest concern was getting moved in, not getting moved out.

That was our first encounter with our ward's emphasis on emergency preparedness. In the first month we were here, we heard 3 talks and had 1 fair devoted to emergency preparedness. Seeing as how we live in an area affected by hurricanes, and we had moved right at the beginning of hurricane season, we decided we had better get prepared. I started an emergency binder, full of all our important information. We got started on our water and food storage, and made a list of 72-hour kit supplies.

When Dolly came thorough Corpus Christie, we were far enough away not to be affected. But it was a wake-up call to really get cracking on our emergency plans. Then we got word that Edouard was heading our way - a category 1 hurricane. It was supposed to be mild, as hurricanes go, but I'd been through tropical storms before, and I knew enough to be nervous for the storm that was coming.

We woke up Tuesday morning, the day the hurricane was supposed to hit, to the sound of rain. Mark decided it wasn't bad enough to stay home, so he went to work, leaving me to brave the hurricane all by myself in our apartment. At 12:00 noon, the appointed time for the hurricane to hit Galveston (45 minutes south), I started gathering up the flashlights, candles, and matches, ready for a power outage. But it never came. In fact, the rain stopped at 1:00. The wind hardly rustled the leaves of the tree outside our window. By the time it hit Houston, Edouard turned out to be a dud. We were a little disappointed that we didn't get to experience our first real live hurricane, but are grateful that we didn't have to put our emergency supplies to use. We'll save them for the next hurricane to come along.