The last two nights our neighborhood seemed preternaturally calm. Mister and I caught up on Homeland (!) without hearing much from the outside world. No sirens, no helicopters, no chit chat from neighbors walking around, no dog walkers, no cars. I don't mean a little quiet, I mean silent on a Saturday night is weird.
Yesterday, people were out in force stocking up on water and food. The little bodegas were manageable, the bigger stores were packed. Bama and I stopped at three shops yesterday to find odds and ends but mostly to be out of the house for a while. Last year, the smalls and I were in California while New York prepped for Irene. Mister packed up our papers and photos, put together a new emergency kit since we'd left our other kit in our California storage locker. (Originally we were moving for a year, we didn't take everything.) Our old apartment on King Street was on the border between zones a and b, and we lived in a first floor apartment with bedrooms in the basement; a flooding scenario. He headed to Brooklyn to higher ground with our friend @sarahm.
This year, we're on higher ground in a grey zone. I'm not putting in our address, but we're in a big fat grey zone. We're probably lose power, we may lose water, but we should be fine on the water front. If we need to leave our apartment, we have keys to @sarahm's and can get there quickly.