Hurricane Irene

Yup, Irene was headed our way.  If you hadn't heard Irene was going to be the biggest Hurricane of all time!  Well at least that's what the news agencies, mayors, governors, and even the president were saying.

The city was in evacuation mode, the transit was shut down, stores were closing, people were asked to leave their buildings, and stores were boarded up.

Below is a new way to use duck tape...

I guess they started to run out and used a few pieces of strong to make sure trashcans weren't flying everywhere.

Everywhere you looked things were boarded up and taped up!

So where was the first place we went when we heard we had to evacuate and stores were shutting down?

Whole Foods!!!

Yes, its crazy to think in the world that we live in that I and everyone else in New York, were fighting over organic fruits, free range chicken, and hormone free milk.  I still can't figure out how I feel about the whole thing.  So the line wrapped around half the block and it took us about 15 minutes to go in.  I really felt like I was on the old show super market sweep.  You get into a real weird shopping mode, when everyone around you is buying for a 2 week camping trip or nuclear warfare.  So you get into the same group think as well.  I think we bought enough food for 10 different meals.  (I think at least 6 of those meals never came to fruition).  

This was a friday and the hurricane wasn't going to hit until Saturday night.  Whole foods was nice enough to stay open all night or until food ran out.  And even by the time we got in there there was no bread left and very little water.  I do feel better that bread and water were the first to go and not organic pears and quail.  But who am I to judge we filled an entire cart full of food and still had second thoughts on whether we bought enough.

Jason Wang was visiting us and hadn't been to NYC since he was small so it really was the worst weekend he could have came.  We had so many plans that fell through such as going to the Jersey Shore, seeing a Broadway show, taking and boat cruise and going to the top of the Empire State Building.

So after getting our provision the day before, Saturday became a ghost town.  The subway was shutting down at noon.  And the taxis were on emergency fare tolls, which meant it was going to cost the 4 of us almost $40 to go anywhere, since they turned off the meter and changed flat rates within Manhattan and more to any other destinations.  So whatever we did had to happen either close or before noon.  After scouring the web, we found out that the shake shack on the upper west side would be open from 11 - 3 on Saturday before shutting down.  All other locations would not even be open.

So we jumped on the subway and was in line at 10:50.  We had our burgers and got back down to our area on the subway before it was shut down.  

These girls were carrying everything they needed for a long stay away including a bottle of wine in the water bottle holder on the side.  It was an amazing site on the subway before it was getting shut down.  People were really heading the warnings and getting out before the Hurricane struck.

At 3 this is what most of the subway stations looked like.

But we still had most of the day free so we didn't let it spoil our day.

So where would you go on the day before Armageddon?  Times Square!!!

I also made a shirt to mark the occasion and got a lot of great complements!

After all the fun was had in times square we finally made it back to the apartment filled the bathtub and sang campfire songs for the rest of the night.

More accurately, Christie made an amazing meal with all the great food we had from Whole Foods.  We obviously bought beer to hold us over for the night and video skyped with a few friends to tell them our last wishes.  We went to sleep and the next day New York City was still intact, there was very minor flooding by the south street seaport, and a bunch of leaves and branches on the ground.

Overall NYC was spared the blunt of the storm and more importantly all the flooding that occurred in the area around New York, which ended up having a great deal of destruction.

I can say after a week that started with an earthquake and ended with a Hurricane that New York City was hitting us with everything they had but we are still staying strong!