Sandy

Whoever names storms seemed to want to celebrate my family this year. First there was Alberto, then Beryl and later Ernesto. My son-in-law's mother is called Sandy.

There is nothing I can write about this last storm. I have a son in Maryland and one in Virginia and the last thing I did before I went to bed last night was send them an e-mail and tell them to be careful and to keep in touch. This morning I heard from Andrew in Rockville, Maryland, that they had been without power all night, but it had been restored by morning. They have had such dismal experiences with their power company—rather inaptly called Pepco—that they bought a generator which helps during their frequent outages. Al posted data about the rainfall in his rain gauge (5 inches when he woke up) and put up photos of a road disguised as a river, but they both escaped the worst of Sandy's violence.

We had watched the news reports last night as the east coast prepared for the worst. On occasions like this the news agencies make use of the local reporters affiliated with their network. We enjoyed the anxious and rather garrulous young woman, hoping perhaps for a future shot at the big time, who told us that there was a great deal of damage when a car fell on a tree, but watching the reports tonight, it was hard to find any humor.

We are several hundred miles away from the areas where the storm came aground, but last night the sound of blowing rain and blustery winds kept me awake. It has calmed down now. How easily life returns to normal for us who did not suffer the effects of the storm.