Real Hurricane Irene

As most people probably know, a great portion of the East Coast was hit by Hurricane Irene this past weekend. We were in her path. This was my first hurricane. I have to say that I learned, I don’t like hurricanes. Everyone here says that this one was nothing compared to some that have come through and I truly don’t ever want to be here for some of the bigger ones.

Where I am at, we were in the outer band of the hurricane(meaning that our winds were only predicted to be about 39mph). Yet, we had a 4 or 5 hour time period where we were having pretty consistent 70mph wind gusts. It seemed that as soon as 1 would come through it would be calm for a very short time, then another huge wind gust. All of this was happening between 10pm and 4am. Great for sleeping…NOT!

We lost power for about 15 hours, which considering some in my county are still without power, is fantastic! The morning after about 80% of my county was without power and we had power. Thank goodness!

During the power outage, I made dinner on our camping stove.

I couldn’t find whole wheat wagon wheel pasta, so I used Rigatoni instead. I know this picture isn’t the best as the food is already 1/2 gone and not well lit, but it was a hurricane, I didn’t have all my whits about me(I was a bit stressed and scared)!
Everyone really liked it and we ate the almost the entire thing. I think  I will add this recipe to my list of good things to make in a power outage recipe list. No, I don’t actually have a list, but I have thought of making one.

1. Get cash (the ATM’s and credit machine’s may be down after the storm).
2. Fill up your car’s gas tank.
3. Take in all the stuff in the yard that could be blown around by the winds.
4. DON’T do your regular grocery shopping the day before the storm. I did this…it really added to the stress factor once we lost power. I was thinking about all that money I spent and all that food spoiling.
5. Do your laundry before the storm, so if you are without power for a while you have clean clothes.
6. Use paper plates….GASP…yes this eco mama actually used paper plates during the power outage.
7. Make your own ice blocks using large mixing bowls.
8. Freeze your water bottles (drinking water). They can be used to keep your fridge and freezer cold or in your ice chest. Once they melt you can drink them.
9. Plan to use your grill to cook food after the storm has passed.
10. If you have a camping stove, plan to use it during the storm to cook food.
11. We slept downstairs all together because we have a lot of trees and it was just too scary upstairs with all the wind. So, if you have a similar issue, have your air mattress bed (because really, who at my age is really going to sleep on the floor….ummm no!) already blown up since the air blower thingy (what is that called?) will most likely need power to blow the mattress up.