Hurricane Sandy From NE Philadelphia

Well, it came and it provided a lot of fanfare for the network news channels. They were all over the place filing up the television with unneeded information. Not that some of the info wasn't needed but the majority of it was unnecessary. The family, mine that is, were at the house playing games and watching movies that we rented earlier in the day. Not a bad time to catch up on some of the movies I am too cheap to go see at the theater. So, my son, my wife and I watched The Avengers. It was pretty decent and only cost us one dollar to rent. My daughter chose to watch Katie Perry's movie from her room. She just doesn't like the super hero stuff. The food of choice for us was grilled cheese sandwiches and soup, yummy. There was a lot of snacking also, but when isn't there. There were board games and just fun watching the storm from the window. Then around 6:00 p.m. my neighbor's fence out back started to give. I went out to try and hold it back with some bungies but eventually, Sandy took them and the fence with it. Just as I was done with the fence I turned my attention to my neighbor's house out front whose roof had just folded over onto his car, which was parked in the driveway. So, I go over and knock on the door. He tells me he had just come home only 15 minutes prior from the shop where his car was just repaired. He looked upset, but I kept thinking how lucky he was that he was not standing out there when this happened. The car roof was caved in and he wanted to get the pieces to a safe location before they flew around and hit other things. I just wanted him to go in the house. Then it happened, the neighbor's roof next door started to buckle. The roof folded over right before our eyes. It was so scary. We just ran to the street to avoid getting hit. And that was it for us. I insisted that the first neighbor go in the house and I made my way towards my house. The rest of the night we spent listening to the gusts outside and hoping that nothing else got damaged and no one else got hurt. There were some other moments of sidding being torn from nearby houses. An awning next door flew right off into the lawn. After it was all said and done, the storm made it's presense known and reminded us how fragile our existence is. After watching some of the news reports from the shore towns and New York I am very happy to the extent that we got hit. Many people are suffering from severe damage. I saw one report of a tree that was three hundred years old and was planted by William Penn. The family seemed so upset that the tree had made it all those years and finally fell under their watch. I think that is a bit odd to think that their presense had anything to do with it. But, we are humans with big egos. So, what can I say? Sandy packed a punch but we are all okay. Hopefully everyone makes a full recovery from the damages and life as we know it can resume as the little ones get ready for the fun tomorrow of going door to door for candy. Happy Halloween everyone!