Seek Shelter Immediately!

But first; a funny story. Maybe ten years ago my sister and I did our first cross country road trip. I was eighteen, she was seventeen, it was a total cluster and I'm sure I'll talk about it again. Anyway we were staying at India House (a great Hostel) in New Orleans and had decided to explore the Mississippi coast one morning. All the rich guys with their big houses leave in the summer (too hot) and their private beaches are left pretty vacant, so we went swimming in the Gulf. After about an hour we look across the water and there is this huge cloud stretching all the way from left to right and you can almost see it getting bigger and closer. Being two teenagers from the northeast we had no idea what it was, but decided we’d had enough swimming so we headed back into New Orleans. Shop keepers were sandbagging their doors, boarding up their windows. When we got back to the hostel they gave us a refund and said to head to higher ground. We decided to outrun the hurricane, which turned into chaos but (in retrospect) a good experience!

So, ten years later, I’m sitting at work and the sirens start blasting (yes sirens in Mass) “Severe weather emergency! Seek Shelter Immediately!” First rain, then hail, then the wind and through the whole thing it sounded like we were in a subway station in WWII London. I didn’t think much of it (we are in the land of nor'easter!) but office staff was heading for basements, maintenance was trying to get the building to stop leaking, it was a very entertaining evening.The major damage missed us by a few miles.

The car held up very well. It already has pretty massive hail damage from an earlier event and the windows, though slightly open, did not let in much rain. I also have new roof storage, which I’ll talk about later, but I have yet to check it for durability. It's beautiful today, like nothing happened. When hurricanes start hitting New England every few years, you know somethings not quite right.