Hurricane Watch: Iselle and Julio

LANAI CLEARED OUT and battened down? Check.
Costco-sized bags of ice, flashlights, and bath tub cleaned out for water? Triple check.
Looking forward to how little monies I'm going to make at work this weekend? ...
I guess I should look at this like a surprise vacation celebrated inside with no power while the storms plural party it up outside. 

Hurricanes Iselle and Julio are on their way to the Hawaiian Islands. Iselle is expected to hit Oʻahu at 6 tomorrow morning and storm all day Friday. Julio is more of a wild card, but it's expected to last Sunday through Monday. Needless to say, I most likely won't be updating Year of the Boar this weekend, apologies for that and also for being MIA in general. 

So, hurricane madness is in full swing. The list of worst storms I've been in include A) the Blizzard I Don't Remember because I was a baby, but it hit us on a camping trip up in the Cascades, Washington State, and apparently I was turning blue and screaming my head off quite helpfully; B) Jeju Island Summer 2011, during  which it was so pitch-black I kid you not: I couldn't see my hand in front of my face; C) Assorted wind storms in Washington State, during which I prayed those pesky carpenter ants hadn't weakened our towering pine and Douglas Fur trees. There was also a wild lightning storm in West Virginia, during which streaks of purple lightning lit up the entire horizon in front of our car. 

Now there's Iselle and Julio. The whole island is waiting with bated breath. Last year there was a tsunami scare, but thankfully it didn't reach the island. There was less warning on that one, so people didn't have as much time to prepare. This situation is different. This entire week, people have been flooding Costco, Foodland, Sam's Club, City Mill, Safeway, and gas stations. I pulled into work yesterday and there was a line of cars swamping the Tesoro gas station, nearly out to the highway. The Tesoro people said they'd sold something like 80,000 gallons of gas--at one station. I went to Foodland three days ago, and the entire wall of bottled water was bare. Since then, other shelves have been plucked clean; it's kind of an eerie feeling to walk through the store and see so little there. 

Our landlords are clearing out tonight to go stay at a hotel, since the hotel wouldn't give them a refund and they have friends visiting. Various hurricane shelters have been set up. Some like at Kaimuki are pet friendly. Last storm scare we packed up our cat Mango to go stay at Greg's mother's place, who has a loveable German Shepherd mix. Yeah, neither of them were too happy. Also, The Bus is offering free service to hurricane shelters, if you look for the ones that have EVACUATION signs.

Mango no like storm.

I'm definitely expecting power outages and maybe some flooding...hopefully it isn't too bad. Last time there was a bad storm, our driveway flooded quite a bit, so our landlord has been spending time diverting gutters and clearing out the leaves from storm drains. They just put in really nice solar panels, so I hope those don't get damaged. Greg and I will be staying home; his mother who lives inland did invite us over if it gets really bad, but I guess we'll just have to see.

The sky's so clear and blue right now. You wouldn't believe a storm was coming.