I was in New Orleans doing Katrina relief a week after the levies broke. The most widespread devastation was outside the city, along the strip of land between Lake Pontrachain and the Gulf, and the Lower 9 th ward, which was outside the levy system. I drove down a road where the surge had come ashore and scoured every house for more than 3 miles off the face of the earth, and into the Lake - nothing but sand, trash, and plumbing fixtures sticking out of the ground for as far as the eye could see. The I5 roadway where it crossed over the Lake into the city was dominoed saw tooth wise into the water between the concrete pilings. I saw a refrigerator that had been deposited in a tree - more than 30 feet off the ground; the roof and dormer of house deposited across the road when the surge went out; places where the layers of asphalt of the road itself was peeled up by the surge, and deposited, yellow lines and all, as a crackly path along side the original roadbed.
That experience had a profound impact on my outlook on life and the very real fragility of both our physical works and social constructs in the face of nature and adversity. I lived in Ocean county, New Jersey, on Barnegat Bay so those dangers were very real to me. I also vowed to myself that when I next bought a house, it would be on high ground away from the ocean with a readily available water supply. I accomplished those goals when I moved to Maryland (Harford County, shmessy). Two weeks after my NJ house closed, Sandy hit. If you have ever seen the famous picture of the house on an island by a bridge where all the land has been washed away - my house was on the other side of that bridge.
So now I sit waiting to see if this hurricane will make it's way here. I have backup a backup generator, food, water kerosene lights, heaters, propane, medical supplies, sheets of plywood for the Windows and that all purpose emergency building materiel - blue tarps.
I know I am better prepared than most - but I wonder if it is enough.
