Porch Lights

Sometimes there's a lot of anticipation leading up to a big storm and you can kind of tell people want it to disrupt their lives so they can feel brave and talk about it afterwards. Other times some bad weather has a surprisingly big impact and nobody is quite ready for it. 

I think today falls in to the latter category.

I wouldn't classify the weather as dangerous or anything, but it was the first time I've been in the middle of teaching and had the power in the school go out and stay out.  When I taught in a small school on one of the outer islands they were prepared for this sort of thing and the generator would just kick in and everyone would continue on like nothing happened. That was not exactly the case here, however, so it did add some drama to the end of the day.

Getting home was also a little trickier, since there were emergency vehicles out directing people around detours in several places. The water along the shore was probably the highest I had ever seen it, and when coming back onto the island it felt more like driving across a causeway than a bridge. Which was neat, actually. 

It reminded me of another teaching job where I really did have to drive across a causeway, one that on a day like today would probably be getting washed over. In those days, when heading home after work I would sometimes pass a certain coworker who often had to pull over and calm herself down before driving across it during high tide because she had such anxiety about going off the road and into the water. 

Surprisingly, here at our house we have had power this whole time, and I sit here listening to the wind howling around the house and banging things on the porch while drinking hot cocoa and feeling quite comfortable. I should probably tuck in early anyways and not push my luck!