The Morning Before

The whole "waiting for Irene" experience has been very interesting. Yesterday you would not have known that trouble was potentially coming, save for a score of boats all attempting to flee the water. When I got up this morning I could see that the weather was overcast, but I wanted to look a bit closer so I went out for a run down to the water. Grey clouds stretched as far as I could see (just like home), and there was the pervasive odour that accompanies a low tide. But other than that, it appeared to be life as normal. There was a yard sale happening on one of the side streets (the streets here are very old, and as a result are very narrow. Thankfully we are now carless), a guy fishing off the dock who was proclaiming how fishing before a hurricane was the best cause the fish were hungry. A bit later on we saw tourists waiting for a dinner train, ball teams playing on the local field, and people wandering about the streets.

But alongside "business as usual" we started to see boards going up on buildings, windows being taped, water vanishing off store shelves, and local businesses announcing that Sunday would be a "hurricane closure." And ironically enough in this land of opprtunity, we have even started to see some t-shirts ("Blow Me Irene") to commemorate the occasion of Irene coming to Newport.