Hurricane Sandy slams Maryland – Is this all you’ve got?

Growing up 100 yards from the Chesapeake Bay, but just high enough to thumb my nose at the storm surge tide gave me an unhealthy skepticism of the power of hurricanes – for a flatlander.

We rode our bikes through the waves on Shore Drive, during the storm and after, explored local streams, nearly fell in, were somewhat impressed by the strength of the current and our proximity to the Bay, and witnessed fish raining from the sky.

Then Isabel came and ripped away 20 yards of shoreline, nearly condemning a half-dozen homes and leading to a massive public works bulkhead to save my parents’ neighborhood.

Now I work with Robert Gutro  – a serious NASA weather nut and hurricane fan who can cite statistics on every hurricane, cyclone, or tropical cloud formation that looks like a duck if you hold your head just so

So this weekend has been a sort of extended holiday of being just slightly more than usual aware of the weather as I go about my business, getting extra beer and wine and talking my wife into baking extra chocolate chip cookies, because – of survival.

And it’s starting to get interesting. From the record-setting barometer reading of 940 MB to the oak branches dancing outside our window.

So Monday when I would usually be taking the free holiday (federal facilities closed) to help my kids work on some creative Halloween costume ideas, I find myself logging into work through VPN to post-hurricane updates and wondering if this is all Sandy’s got to deliver.

Also praying. Saint Barbara (no relation to my wife) is the patron of deflecting storms.

So far we still have power, and are keeping everything fully charged as long as we can – no telling when PEPCO will restore power if it goes. Still, we have family in three parts of the state if we have to get out of Dodge.

On the other hand, we’ve been practicing emergency preparedness for several years – keeping a well-stocked pantry as well as two bins of non-perishable food up to date one bin of emergency essentials in a closet close to the front door, and another bin of camping supplies in the attack. We don’t have a solution for heating our 1950s row house, other than many, many fuzzy blankets, but will more likely bail if it comes to that.

Also, I had this one editor who seemed to enjoy sending me into harm’s way or waking like Katrina – nothing major. I wonder what he’s doing now?  Oh, yeah, asking me to blog about the hurricane.

As I write this, the first flickers hit our power system.  …

Karl B. Hille

Karl Hille lived and breathed local news beat reporting in Greenbelt and the Baltimore/Washington region for more than 12 years until the 2007 recession. While learning and improving the online side of the Baltimore Examiner operations, his platform dropped out from under his feet, then his rebound job at a regional business news magazine downsized him three months later. Now, working for the “dark side” – public communications work by day for the awesome government agency – he is going back to school to find the critical intersection of news, investigation, and the Internet – and re-learning how to be a student while he’s the only guy on campus sporting a fedora.