Tolland Weather

Our wedding anniversary is next week. Jim and I have been married quite a while and have long since learned to find amusement (or at least tolerance) in what we each might see as the overreactions of the other.

This anniversary, I had a special reminder of how lucky I am, because we had a hurricane in Tolland. (Well, it was a tropical storm by the time it actually hit us, but it was still a very impressive storm – apparently winds were 60-65 mph here.)

When we moved here, we expected snow. We expected cold and were prepared as much as we could be for the humidity.

But a hurricane was a surprise.  

I had been watching the leaves slowly lighten up for the past few weeks, hoping that would be a sign of cooler (and drier) weather. I have not been in New England for fall in decades, and I have wanted to share that with my family since we first decided to move here. For that matter, I wanted to be here for the autumn foliage myself.

People who have never been to New England may think they know what fall colors here look like. They see photographs or look at the trees in their more temperate climates and think it is like that, just more of it. But photographs cannot really convey how vivid and sparkling the foliage can be. They cannot communicate the exuberance of the entire forest dancing in its best finery before the winter sets in. Watching the light play in the leaves when the breeze tickles them is a treat even now. When the colors erupt, it will be glorious.

At the end of August I was waiting for fall. At the time, the typical Connecticut daily summer weather forecast (it might rain) still seemed to apply, so I did not pay much attention to the weather Web sites.

But Jim did. Jim has kept an eye on the hurricane Web site (noaa.gov) for years. A week before the storm hit, when he started talking about Irene, I filed it as interesting in a distant sort of way – hurricanes went to places like the Gulf Coast, not here.  

Silly me.

He told me he was worried that Irene might come here days before anyone else seemed concerned. So my amused tolerance for overreaction kicked in.

Silly me again.

He insisted we get the generator filled (we had a new tank with only a little propane in it), and repeatedly pestered the propane company to get someone out here before the storm.

On a brilliantly sunny Thursday before the storm, we went on a fun-filled trip to the mega-stores in Manchester to stock up and get D batteries for the flashlights (and I saw only one package left on the shelf at one store and none at all at two other stores). The news had been full of talk of the hurricane for a day or two by then, but the only mention I heard from other people while we were out is that they were running out of generators at Home Depot.

On the hot and sticky Friday before the storm, he packed all of the summer’s accumulated necessities (basketballs, fire pit sticks, bug repellent, gardening tools, dog brushes, picnic tables and chairs, etc.) off the back porch and strapped the barbeque to the railings so it would not blow around. While he was doing that, I ran as much laundry as I could and wondered for the nth time if he would notice if I turned the thermostat down just a teensy bit on the air conditioner - it was a really hot day. Much to my dismay we ended up cancelling our plans to celebrate my mother’s birthday over the weekend, just to be on the safe side. The amused tolerance was wearing thin by then.

On Saturday, it started to rain in earnest, though there was no wind. Jim filled up empty milk cartons with fresh water and put them on the kitchen counter. He put very heavy paving stones on the boxes that held the parts of our (soon to be constructed) garden shed. He placed flashlights in strategic locations around the house in case the generator did not come on when the power failed.  He made sure the cell phones were charged. The newspaper boy left a note that the Sunday paper would be delayed. The amusement was gone – this was looking real, now.

When we woke up Sunday, we had lost power. The storm had come. The wind was throwing branches around like paper airplanes, and I realized how much damage Jim’s preparations had prevented. The kids seemed to take it as an adventure for the most part. The generator had automatically kicked on, as promised, but it only runs part of the house. It lets us have water, lights in a few rooms, the fridge and the stove burners. We really did not want to face the day without our morning  coffee, so  Jim laboriously filled a bag with coffee beans and beat it with a rolling pin to grind them up, then boiled water for an old-fashioned coffee press.  Immediately after he completed that entertaining ritual he discovered a plug that worked in the kitchen. Just underneath the grinder and automatic coffee maker.

It was still good coffee.

We were able to intermittently pick up some news off our cell phones and early reports were to expect power outages for up to eight days. That was worrisome.

All day long the wind howled and the rain slammed against the windows, but all of us were safe. For the most part we just waited. We read. We talked to each other. Our son James played the piano. We played a marathon Monopoly game. We discovered that our daughter Maureen has an undeniable grasp of business strategies as she bartered, bought, and negotiated with all of us until she had acquired the entire side of the board with Boardwalk and Park Place. She reveled in an evil Bwa-ha-ha laugh as she developed her real estate so voraciously that it would make Donald Trump blush.

As dusk fell, the storm stopped. The kids went outside to play across the street. Everyone in the neighborhood asked around to make sure that everyone was all right. All of us were ok – but none of us had power. Even the animals were ok, except for one vaguely traumatized cat that seems to have made the rounds of the houses during the storm.

Our dogs have the congenital narcolepsy that Great Danes are prone to – they slept through the whole thing. They did rouse themselves very briefly to announce their dissatisfaction with the weather while they went outside to relieve themselves, but otherwise spent the storm unconscious.

We were expecting another week without power, so we turned off the generator to save fuel. Once it was dark, we simply went to bed. The kids found their way into our room, and after a few recurring  attacks of the giggles brought on by such an unusual day, everyone finally went to sleep.

Monday dawned bright and beautiful – and the power was on! The kids went out to play. People were out walking their dogs and riding bikes. Almost the entire neighborhood seemed to have power. The few houses without power had help from the neighbors.

We all went out to look at the damage. Branches and leaves littered everything, and some of them were big and heavy. The house across the street lost a tree that fell on some power lines. Another tree fell on power lines around the corner and also took out a transformer. We heard an explosion that seemed likely to be another transformer somewhere close. Our front yard has a very large piece of tree balanced in the branches of two other trees about forty feet in the air, but otherwise we had no damage. Eventually the tree people will finish with the much more urgent issues they are dealing with right now, and we will be able to get it taken care of. Our road was open, but a lot of roads near us were closed. 

With the power on, we were able to see what had happened to Vermont. We were reminded again how very lucky we were and hoped they would be safe soon.

Most of the town was without power for several days. Even the bank and post office were closed. A lot of the roads were closed, and the town senior center provided hot showers and coffee. Most people here in Tolland have wells, so without power there is no water. 

Emergency food was distributed. I saw a FEMA stand on the Tolland Green distributing MREs and water. Some households waited a very long time for power, and food spoilage was an issue for many families. The town provided a way to get rid of spoiled food, as well. The local butcher was giving away free ice, and the Big Y was donating water.

On Tuesday, the kids on the street all cheered – the first day of school had been delayed. On Wednesday, they cheered even louder – school was delayed another five days, until after Labor Day.

A lot of parents sighed about that.

School has finally started and we have time to stop and consider just how lucky we were to escape with so little harm.

As Jim said, we were truly blessed. But I think he deserves some of the credit also.

And as lucky as all of us were to escape the worst of the storm, I am doubly blessed. I am blessed for all the usual reasons anniversaries bring to mind, and for the foresight Jim had to keep us all safe.  

But also because he never, not even once, said, “I told you so."