The calm before the storm

Hurricane Irene is slowly making her way up the east coast of the US at the moment. She is due to hit Virginia Beach about now and we're expecting to start feel in the effects of it in the next few hours at about 6pm. We're not in the direct path and are just expecting to feel a strong storm. We've had to clear everything off our balcony and I took this photo of our pool this morning, all the sunbeds and umbrellas that usually surround it have been taken away. There is a yellow tape cordoning off part of the patio area at the back of the photo, I'm not sure if that is hurricane related or earthquake related!


This morning I noticed this store at the end of our street had all been boarded up. It's on the corner so I guess they're more likely to be hit by flying debris than the other shops so better to be safe than sorry.


I think most places are closing late afternoon to try to encourage everyone to stay at home. We're hoping that we don't lose power, our apartment has a generator so we've always been ok here before. We usually lose water when there is a big storm so we have lots of bottles or water and have filled up anything that we can find that will hold water so that we can flush the toilet! I was talking to someone on my photo safari this morning and she was telling me that her parents live in Ocean City. There is a mandatory evacuation there but her parents had said that they were going to stick it out. That was until the authorities turned the water off yesterday. I guess that's one method that they can use to try to get people to leave!