Irene approaches

Well this is a super exciting weekend, but not necessarily in a good way. NY is slated to get hit by its first hurricane in a long time and it sounds like it's going to be a doozy. They've closed down the entire MTA system which they've NEVER done in preparation of a storm before. There's a huge likelihood of flooding, especially since this is the wettest August we've had in years, so all low lying areas of the city had to be evacuated. 600,000 people from Coney Island, the Rockaways, LES, East Village and Battery Park all had to go to shelters or move to higher ground. Luckily my apartment is dead in the center of Brooklyn so I should be far enough away from the oceans to keep my stuff safe (damn, why did I keep procrastinating on that renter's insurance?!). My biggest concern is for Xavier's stuff in the basement. Last year we had some flooding issues down there that were never really fixed, they kind of just stopped on their own. Twice during heavy rains we had about an inch of water on the floor. Xavier is away in Seattle right now so I went down there and took all of his stuff off of the floor. I'm going to go down there periodically to check on the situation, I just REALLY hope tomorrow isn't spent carrying buckets of water up the stairs :/
I was a good boy and set out the flashlights and candles, plus I filled pots of water in case the power goes out. Someone told me a cool trick to fill Ziplock bags full of water and freeze them, that way if the power goes out it'll help your food last longer, plus you have extra drinking water! I'm just hoping the electricity stays on. I would be quite happy to spend the rest of today and tomorrow playing World of Warcraft...
Here are some pre-storm photos! My car is parked a few blocks away next to a completely treeless chain link fence, so hopefully it'll still have it's windows intact come Monday. The storm is supposed to hit in a few hours, last throughout tonight and tomorrow and finally wrap up sometime tomorrow night. They're saying possible 100mph winds and up to 15 inches of rain. I'm already worried about how I'm supposed to walk Brady tomorrow. Maybe I can spend tonight training him how to pee in the shower, otherwise I'll be doing my best Mary Poppins impression tomorrow.