Girl with a Pink Umbrella

Hurricane Sandy pounded the east coast with a vengeance, bringing flooding and major winds to Atlantic City, Manhattan, and other coastal areas, before turning its eye inland. From there, it met up with a Nor'easter and turned into a blizzard, covering some areas of Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee with two feet or more of snow.

In central Pennsylvania, late last week, there had already been dire predictions of the damage from this storm. As early as Friday, our utility companies began bringing in crews from out of state to help repair the anticipated damages from fallen trees and power outages. On Saturday, our governor already declared a state of emergency, before the storm even made landfall.

The weekend was gray and drizzly: a quiet, pregnant pause before the storm hit for real. Monday morning was uneventful; we started to get the sense of a storm that might not achieve the level of danger that had been predicted.

But on Monday afternoon, the rains came pouring down, and the winds picked up. They roared and howled around our house, bringing leaves and branches down. A huge branch hit the cable that brings Internet and phone into our home, ripped it off the wall, left it dangling, but somehow - miraculously - didn't take us offline.

The electricity flickered, went out, a half-dozen times or more. Each time it went out, I held my breath. But each time, it came back on. We continued to have electricity, telephone, Internet, heat, and light. We were among the lucky ones. Areas along the coast as well as some areas inland got devastating amounts of wind, rain, snow; lost power; experienced flooding. Part of the boardwalk washed away in Atlantic City. New York City, the city that never sleeps, went dark.

Much of the afternoon and evening on Monday, the wind and rain pounded all around us. It picked up speed after midnight, delivering winds that thundered like a freight train around 4 am, waking our entire household, making it difficult to get back to sleep.

The weather prognosticators were predicting the eye of the storm would pass over us in central Pennsylvania sometime during the day Tuesday, bringing additional strong winds in its wake. We were cautioned about downed power lines, about debris on the road, about the potential for flooding.

There is a bus stop within a few-minute walk of my drive way. My husband, ever concerned for my safety, convinced me to take the bus to work rather than drive, given the conditions. So on Tuesday morning, after not nearly enough sleep, I packed a little daysack (tucking in my smaller camera, just in case) and caught the bus to Penn State's campus, where I took a connecting bus to my workplace which is a bit off campus.

My trip was uneventful. I saw no devastation, no damages, no downed trees, no darkened homes or businesses, no flooding. Unlike so many others, we were very fortunate. I put in my work day, caught a bus back to campus, caught another bus home.

In between the buses, I had just a few minutes to walk around campus and check out the conditions. Campus was wet, and there were leaves down everywhere, making things a bit slippery for walking. Surprisingly, there were still bright spots where the foliage was as lovely as ever: the colors seemed almost luminous, shining out like a beacon in the rain.

Unlike myself, who was toting a rather drab black standard model, the students had very colorful umbrellas. This young lady's was pink, and I thought she made a pretty picture walking down the mall below the library. To her left is flaming foliage; to her right, a line of stately elm trees our lovely campus is famous for.

I am thankful we were spared the worst of it. And to those along the east coast who are suffering; who are still without power, without heat, perhaps amid floods or having left their homes or been stranded somewhere unexpectedly: all of our thoughts and prayers are with you. May there be an end to the storms, a quick restoration of normalcy, and a rainbow after the rain.