Sam and I are “getting ready” for our first big Northeast storm: Sandy. If you live in a box, you’ve missed that there’s this big hurricane heading to the East Coast of the United States that will be merging with a second storm and creating pandemonium. Every news break on NPR is opening with “Hurricane Sandy continues toward the East Coast… The [insert official’s name] of  [insert major city] has declared [some vital part of city infrastructure: highway, subway, etc…] has been closed due to the storm.”

This is our first experience with a Northeast storm, and our first experience with a hurricane. It’s interesting.

First, most Midwesterners won’t really remember Hurricane Irene that hit the northeast in late August of last year. However, everyone in New Hampshire and Vermont remembers the rain, flooding, days without power, and the massive cleanup that is still ongoing. This storm is on everyone’s mind as Sandy comes barreling toward the East Coast, and it’s making everyone a bit more cautious than they normally would be. I’ve heard a lot of stories about Irene destruction – roads that were washed out, the last house in the neighborhood to get power, flooding that carried an RV over to the Connecticut river. Everybody points out the “water line” if their house was flooded. JoAnn Fabrics even washed away, rebuilt, and reopened.

Since Irene is recent history, everybody around here is preparing for the worst.

What we have done to prepare.

Sam and I have taken some basic measures. First, we have part of a winter larder put by for the winter, so we’re not too worried about not having food. We may be eating cold corn out of cans and tofu right out of the sealed package, but we won’t go hungry. I’m concerned with the chest freezer – if the power goes, we have about 36-48 hours of freeze, but after that, our chest freezer will begin to thaw, taking our fruit and veggies with it. We have ample dry pet food for Molly and Pidi.

We have also made sure to have lots of water on hand. We got a 2-gallon jug from the COOP, plus we filled our camping water reserve. Additionally, if things get too bad, we can fill up the bathtub so we have gallons of water.

Sam went out yesterday and topped off the gas tank, so we have enough gas to get out of the hurricane area. He also stopped at the grocery and made sure we had basics like some candles and matches, batteries for flashlights, bleach and rubbing alcohol. Bonus! The pre-packaged indian curries are shelf stable and pretty good cold. Sam picked up 2 boxes. We got into our camping supplies and got our camping stove and jetboil, so we can heat some food, if necessary. We also counted the tiles in our Scrabble game to make sure we had all of the Ps and Qs. If the power goes out, there will likely be Scrabble and re-reading of Harry Potter novels.

I’ll keep updating here, on Facebook at @AddiFaerber on Twitter.