hurricane irene

i hadn't even left emily's driveway to head home from SC before i got a call from shane warning me that there was a hurricane headed our way. it looked like irene was headed straight for us. so i drove back to NC to prepare for the storm.

^ there were several possible storm tracks. this was one. we live right above the "T" in wilmington on the coast.

^ and here's another. this time we're right under the "O" in wilmington. none of the projected paths looked too good for us. so we stocked up on hurricane survival gear and hunkered down to ride out the storm.


^ we even sandbagged the garage door and the front door. we have a problem here with flooding since our house is at a low spot. they were expecting up to 18 inches of rain, so i thought we should do our best to keep it out. here, it's just after 5 pm on friday the 26th.

^ only hours after the storm's edge reached us, the water was creeping up!

^ around 10:10 pm, i got a call from my neighbor to warn me that there was a tornado spotted in the area and we had to seek shelter. i ran into trayson's room to get him, while shane scooped up the boys and we headed to the laundry room. we spent the night there, since there was another tornado warning a couple hours later.

^ luckily, the tornados missed us, but the wind caused plenty damage. here's a neighbor's roof.

^ standing water next to our house

^ oh look! i have an indoor pool now! =)

^ silly trevin plugged in shane's ipad to charge it when it started to die. too bad the power was out. ;-P

^ the teeny tiny laundry room everyone slept in. that was a rough night! it got hot in there!

^ our fence got a bit of a lean.

^ downed trees a block over from us.

^ this tree is right next to my neighbor's fence. thank goodness it fell the other way! it would've gone right through her dining room!

^ after staying up all night, listening to the radio for tornado warnings, i was exhausted the next day. trayson tried to wake me up, but i was OUT!

^ the boys, entertaining themselves.

^ that's our neighbors shed, cruising down the street. the wind caught it and ripped it up and over the fence.

^ the tree in our backyard, between gusts of wind.

^ the same tree during a gust. i thought for sure it was going to snap.

^ the stop sign at the end of our street has a bit of a lean now too.

^ and the next morning, it was clear, blue, beautiful skies. crazy!