Hurricane watch

Thar She Blows!

One thing that we never considered when we moved to Nova Scotia was hurricanes. The simple fact is that if you’ve never lived around them it doesn’t cross your mind.

Now we’re realising that we’re here for the biggest hurricane season in memory, and it’s looking more and more like Hurricane Lee may land right on our doorstep. Though it may be downgraded to a tropical storm, or less than that, it will still likely pack a wallop. One report today mentioned ten foot waves as a possibility.

The last storm was Hurricane Franklin, which missed us by a mile, but wow, the wind and rain were pretty fierce. It’s still too early to say, but Lee looks like it could be worse. (The truth is that until a day or so before it arrives it’s purely a guessing game with hurricanes.)

For the first time I’m actually thinking about bringing in some extra food, and batteries, and drinking water, and about moving all of the patio furniture back into the barn.

Beyond that NS Power has a truly horrible record, and it’s just assumed by everyone that we could see our power go out for days if the storm is bad. But does that merit a generator?

And of course, phones will be out, and likely cel service too. The mega-corporations that own Nova Scotia are really not into redundancy.

Meanwhile, there’s always the late, great Jimmy Buffet… (and I just realized that the song’s about a volcano, not a hurricane… oh well.)