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Extreme Weekend: Goodnight (Morning), Irene

I opened my eyes, and in some ways ears, to my cell phone ringing on the floor nearby. As I got up from crashing on the couch for the three hours and answered the phone, it was my dad on the other line. He was checking in to see how my tag team partner and I were doing after the storm. 

Wait, what?! "After, the storm?"

As I quickly turned my head to the windows to see the bright skies and calm atmosphere overlaying Brooklyn, NY, I was in sudden amazement. What happened between 8:00am and 11:30am? As I dozed off on the couch a bit after 8am, the latest forecast including the worst of Irene lasting until Noon, with rain thereafeter compeltely ceasing at 7pm this evening. 

I quickly recieved word from my tag team partner and my father that the storm had declined into a weaker tropical storm and had now made it's way west toward upstate New York. 

Wow. Hurricane Irene is finally over. 

As we removed the bottles, containers, and cups used to catch the leaks within our living room window frame, the clean up and recovery process began. And while the cool breezy air that rushed in as we opened the windows seemed as if things were alright, news of floods, power outages, and limited damage were seen over the newscast. 

The cleanup and return to normalcy begins. 

The MTA has already made it know that the subway system will return to service tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. So it seems, there might be another day inside casa de Robo. 


8am and up with Irene...
Nonetheless, we were lucky. Very lucky. Irene was rough, but not as terrible as was predicted, or potentially could have been. Yet she did bring an environment to this city I have never seen in all my years of growing up and living here. Evacuations. Mass flooding and surging (a new fancy word I've become friends with this weekend). The entire MTA system shut down (first time in history). Unbelievable wind and rain. Images of an empty Times Square. And a feeling and general concern for not only others, but your housing structure as well. All in all, this extreme weekend, which included my first ever hurricane experience, was a memorable one, but one that I am perfectly content in never, ever, enduring again. 

I prepared for Irene. I stayed up all night with Irene. And just when I fell asleep, she left without saying goodbye. 

She's definitely a mean and nasty you-know-what. 

Goodnight (or morning), Irene, and goodbye forever. 

I hope you never return. And that goes for all of your friends as well. 
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