Like most people in NY & NJ this week has been a bit unreal. I heard about a possible storm as early as last Wednesday. It wasn’t until Thursday or Friday when I realized that this wasn’t just any old storm. My mom was planning a trip to Europe and was going to depart Monday night. On Friday she was concerned she wouldn’t be able to get out in time. By Saturday she had canceled her plans.
Saturday afternoon I got brought into my first disaster planning call from work. Saturday we got a walk in with Teagan and we also went and did some grocery shopping. We typically order Fresh Direct but when we tried all slots were sold out.
Sunday the weather wasn’t horrible yet but it wasn’t too great. I only got out to get some formula since we weren’t sure how long the storm would be. I got lucky at Walgreens and the guy who unlocked the case were the formula was locked up (yes formula in NYC is behind lock and key) pointed out that there was a check out person at the cosmetic counter. i rushed over there and avoided the 20 or so people at the front check out. Others quickly found out that trick and I dodged the line. Most of Sunday was taken up with disaster prep calls. I had calls every two or three hours all day from 9AM on.
I was going to take a day off Monday to watch Teagan while MC had an appointment. By Saturday I realized that the appointment would probably be canceled and I would need to be working to make sure we had no issues with the storm. I was right, the appointment was canceled and I ended up working from home all day. It was my first day working from home with MC and the baby being home.
Monday night was interesting with the storm hitting. It was odd that there was no cars on the road. It was super windy but in this apartment we didn’t really hear it that much. We watched the news briefly but I got most of my news from Twitter feeds. For real time information durring an incident like this it actually was helpful. I was following the NYC Mayors office, FEMA, MTA, National Weather Service, Reuters and teh BBC. I was pretty well informed and didn’t have to watch allot of the sensationalism, fluff or people standing in dangerous stormy areas for no reason.
We were extremely lucky and had no damage at all. We never lost power and up and down my street I didn’t see any downed trees. I know there was some damage south of Austin St but nothing near me we could see. Very lucky is an understatement when my sister is without power, and a cousin’s apartment is totally destroyed.
Tuesday at work was part listing to updates on any affected systems from the storm to trying to find out what was happening with the rest of my team in the NY region. On top of that I was trying to get normal work done.
Wednsday was a little bit more normal, but half my team in NY/NJ were not working. No one else on my team had power, but 2 of them were able to get to an office in NJ. My mom came over to help watch the baby, and MC and I went food shopping since my in laws were coming over. They lost power Monday and we asked them to come over. They finally took us up on the offer Wednesday when they still didn’t have power. Her dad cooked dinner for us all, and they both got to play with the baby.
Thursday I was able to continue to work from home and I tried to get back into a normal routine. Overall I was able to. I had several calls in the morning, and then a one on one with my boss in the afternoon. After that I took off the rest of the day since I wanted to help MC out with Teagan a bit since I had to work Sunday. My dad called the night before to offer for all of us to come over Thursday night for dinner. It’s his cooking night and he knew we were hosting MC’s parents. We all headed over after Teagan’s 4ish feeding. It was the first time we used the car seat without the base. It worked generally well. It was also the first time I used Siri for navigation. I didn’t really need it since i know how to get to my parents place but I always like having the navigation running. MC’s dad drove us all over. We had fish for dinner. It was a good meal. Teagan didn’t sleep at all when over there. I think it may be because of all the grandparents over stimulating her, but what do I know.
When we got home MC’s parents watched the baby as I made formula for the coming day, and MC tried to nap. I then feed Teagan and just got her down for a nap. I write this post Thursday night as everyone else sleeps. I have Teagan up on the Dropcam on my Nexus 7 making sure she still is napping. MC is in our room trying to nap and her parents are in the living room sleeping. I am in my office area (aka what should be the dinning room) hoping that this light typing isn’t annoying to anyone. Watching Teagan on the monitor all warm in her crib sitting in front of a computer with power it reminds me that not everyone was so lucky. I have friends and colleges without power. A cousin whose apartment is ruined and doesn’t know when she can move back in, and there are countless other horror stories to go around. I am glad we came out of this ok, and hope for a speedy recovery or else I will be working from home for a while until they fix the train tunnels.