Oh Irene!

First of all, shout out to fox news, whose ability to play scary music under their hurricane segments last week really helped viewers maintain an underlying sense of panic. Second of all, I heard a woman talking to a friend in Target today about how people had over reacted to Irene's impact, in her opinion, people only lost power for a few hours, and we only had some rain. I hope she was only talking about the area close to Springfield, because my family in Colonial Beach lost power from Saturday night through Tuesday night and had a bit of a rough patch with heavy rains and winds.

I have just returned to Springfield from a quick jaunt to Colonial Beach the past couple of days. You wouldn't even know the hurricane had hit except for the massive amount of leaves and branches covering every yard. Oh and except for this.... 

If you can't tell, there is in fact a house underneath that tree.  Scary thing is, it's only a few lots down from my parent's house.... I talked to neighbor Robert today, who told me that the owner was home at the time, for the sake of the story we will call him Willy. Willy, well along in years, had decided to make himself a sandwich. He had just put it all together when a knock came to the door...a neighbor checking on him. He quickly put the neighbor at ease that he was fine and that he had a sandwich to get back to. The neighbor left and Will went back to the kitchen located along the back of the house. And crack!... the tree falls on the porch and front part of the house where Willy and the neighbor had been conversing only moments before.  

From everything I heard, no one was hurt.  But the trees are quite large and it only takes one huge branch to do some damage. There were other houses that suffered damage...luckily the family is fine and the power came back on so I could visit Mitch and get my car repacked.... next stop, a fall of substitute teaching and job applying!