Sometimes we cook. And sometimes the world impinges.
Hurricane Irene came through Saturday night, bringing with it wind and rain, and knocking out power on half our block. The neighbors, like Sarah and I, came outside onto their porch to watch the spectacle. They told us that the people on the news were calling it a hundred-year storm. And they brought their little girl out to see what real rain looks like, figuring that she may never see its like again.
But we were lucky, up here in the Roxborough hills. The storm battered our windows, it howled a little bit, frightened the cats, and blew away one already-precarious eggplant. But looking at the reports coming in from farther South, from farther North, and even from other parts of Philadelphia, we had it easy. There will need to be a little bit of clean-up perhaps. But neither we nor our neighbors are displaced, or left in the dark, or left with any serious and lasting damage.
This morning, once the worst of the storm had abated, Sarah and I took a walk down the hill to Main Street Manayunk, and to the Schuylkill River, to survey what had happened further afield. The damage down there was not as bad as it could have been. Few businesses were flooded. No windows were broken. But as if there was any doubt, even that degree of damage served as a stern reminder that we should appreciate our good fortune. News vans were on the scene, covering one section of Main Street that looked to be knee deep in rain, and river water, and what may well have been sewage. And one look at the swell of the river and the amount of debris floating downstream let us know that adjacent communities had been hit far worse than we.
I was hardly the only gawker down there with a camera. I’m sure that there are pictures all over the Internet by now. But this is indeed a storm to remember. So I thought I would commemorate it with a couple of photos of its aftermath.
For the rest of you out there caught in the storm, I can only hope that you weathered it as safely as we did. And for those who did not, my thoughts are with you.