Somehow we got pretty lucky these past few days. We survived the Great Storm of ’07 intact. In fact, we did not even lose power – although Richard says our internet access flickered briefly during the day, so maybe that counts for something.

Richard’s been working from home, so he wasn’t much affected and didn’t have to go out in the gale force winds. I, however, went in to work, at least for a short period of time. The early-arriving coworker called at about 7:30 to say the power was out and he was going to stick it out for a bit longer and then let us all know; by 8:45, though, the power was back on, and since I’m the closest to the office, I didn’t have much excuse to stay home. Driving was fun. Most of the people on the freeway were smart enough to realize that caution was the best policy – and there weren’t that many people on the freeway to begin with, so it wasn’t too bad. Driving the city streets, however, was the exciting part. Debris everywhere – huge branches, trash toters, even entire trees were everywhere.

I stayed at work just long enough to set up a conference call to discuss a database and get onto that call, before the power went back out again and this time stayed out. By this time the wind was picking up even worse (they recorded gusts of over 60 mph in our area, so it was kind of nasty out there) and one coworker was pointing out that a large tree had just blocked part of the road near our office, so the others headed out. I stuck it out just until the call was done (the phones at least were still working) and then braved the wind and rain again to drive back home. I figured if I was going to have to get stuck somewhere without power, I’d rather be stuck at home, where there are cats and warm blankets and food, than at the office, which has none of those around.

By the afternoon, it was eerily calm and quiet outside – the storm had blown itself mostly out. I headed off to First Friday Craft Night, through patches of neighborhoods with no power, debris all over the roads. Everyone else came with tales of semi trucks keeled over along the roads, and trees coming down on houses, and people without power, and yet we all knew, somehow, that when compared to what a lot of this country has been facing in the way of storms, our tiny little wind storm (fierce and swift though it was) was infinitely preferrable.