Preparing for the worst

Hermosa Beach is battening down the hatches in anticipation of some El Nino storms and heavy rain. Free sandbags (10 per household) are being given away at City Hall, and the gateways in the low wall that runs along the beach have been bolstered with heaps of sand. We are advised to keep the petrol tank at least half full, and to make sure we are stocked with enough food and water to keep us going for a few days. So far we have survived a couple of days of intermittent rain, but apparently there is more to come.

Lady P doesn't mean it, of course: the thrill of her life is a rare rainy day

At the risk of sounding complacent, I don't think we have too much to worry about. Our house is on the crest of a hill and elevated from the road, so someone else is welcome to our ration of sandbags. We have - as always - enough food to keep an army marching for at least a week. And if the town is flooded so badly the gas stations are shut, I won't want to drive anywhere, so I am not worried if the needle on the gas tank dips below halfway.

Perhaps some of this complacency also stems from a sneaking suspicion that the people of Southern California overreact somewhat to bad weather. Playtime outside is cancelled at Lady P's preschool when it's raining - a shame as it's not often she gets to wear her favourite red wellies and her cute little rain coat. Loved ones (who shall remain nameless) say things like 'Are you sure we should go, in this weather?' even if where we're going involves getting into our car inside our (weatherproof) garage, driving a couple of miles, and walking 20 feet into a (weatherproof) restaurant. People drive inexplicably slowly, as if through a blizzard. The big joke at the gym is when the coach says 'Okay, go warm up with a 400m run... Ha! Just kidding! I'd never make you run outside in this weather!' because it drizzled a bit earlier in the day. And then I see footage of the Cumbrian town my sister lives in, flooded again, and everybody just going about their business and getting on with it and can't help but roll my eyes a little at the softies of SoCal.

It's probably not just people being soft, to be fair. This town is not really built for wet, cold weather. Lots of people keep a lot of stuff outside - toys, cushions on their deck furniture - all year round. Many of us don't have much clothing to straddle the gap between beachwear, and full on ski gear. Half the seats at half the restaurants in town are on outdoor patios - currently blasted with heatlamps to recreate that balmy feel that comes naturally the other 9 months of the year.

I do know, that El Nino is an actual phenomenon. And one which has caused carnage in many places, in other years. And while I teased the apparent overreaction to Hurricane Irene in Manhattan, I know Sandy more than vindicated that response. But in this city of high drama and easy living, I suppose I'm just hoping it will be a few days of the kind of weather Yorkshire people describe as 'spring showers', and that sandbags and emergency supplies will be left unused.

Hurricane Irene damage

Maybe I was a little flippant about Hurricane Irene's impact on Manhattan.

I just came across this picture I took of the Thomas Pink store the morning after the storm. (Guess I forgot about it in all the excitement of surviving Irene).

The 'P' had been stolen by opportunitistic looters. Dark times.

Weathering the storm: a photo story

My first indication that perhaps I hadn't taken this situation seriously enough was when we passed The Gap on 23rd and 8th, and saw it was closed. At 1pm on a Saturday afternoon. Irene is seriously messing with this city.

So we holed up in our chosen place of refuge.

 Our suite here is bigger than the Rabbit Hutch. And the bathroom has a much nicer view.

Our favourite New Yorker sought refuge too. Her Upper East Side apartment was not in Zone A, but all the stores and restaurants near her were closed, so she was basically fleeing boredom. Luckily for us, she brought provisions.

We hunkered down in front of the telly to stay abreast of the latest events. But we soon tired of watching excited weathermen with their special forecast graphics, and shots of newscasters standing waist deep in swollen rivers further down the coast.

So we headed out for a quick recon of the surrounding area, including the all-important Andaz hotel with that fabulous bar. They were pretty busy, but we soon learnt that it wasn't just The Gap being lame. Posh hotels aside, the city was on lock down. You'd almost think a hurricane was coming...

Bryant Park - closed for business.

Gifts on Sixth was the only store around Bryant Park that was open. Not helpful.

Unfortunately by the time we were dressed and ready for dinner, the rain was so heavy we feared even my sturdy metallic heels wouldn't make it to Andaz unscathed. We peered out of the window at the gathering clouds and rain, and decided it was safest to stay indoors. The Bryant Park Hotel has a decent bar of its own after all.

Probably not worth braving this just to go to a different hotel's bar.

Irene struck again: the hotel's Cellar Bar was not serving any of their fabulous speciality cocktails. Presumably their mixologist was trapped on the wrong side of one of New York's closed bridges. And the only food they were serving was cheese. They did however have a range of new Hurricane cocktails they had created specially. I'm not kidding.

So we wound up back in our suite, with the wise New Yorker, watching trashy movies and eating room service. (TLOML had wings and steak, on the grounds that it could be his last meal. Any excuse.) So much for my nice frock and high heels. What a waste, Irene!

This morning, we woke to look out on a rain soaked, wind battered New York. It seems, as we expected, the damage was pretty limited. We breathed a sigh of relief and ordered breakfast.

And that is how we weathered the storm.

Come on Irene

Patently, I am no hurricane expert. We don't really get them in dear safe England, with its much lambasted, but actually very temperate, climate.

But - speaking from my position of total ignorance - it looks to me like Irene would have to make a bit of a sharp left to follow the path the NY Times map has her taking.

Still, Mayor Bloomberg is in charge. Since he told us yesterday to be ready to evacuate, I've had this little stack of essentials neatly lined up on my desk.

On reflection, it's looking a little grey outside now. Maybe I won't need the sunglasses. But the lipgloss is still an essential. Also essential, the tabbouleh and chips we bought in case we couldn't cook or get out to eat this weekend. And several bottles of wine so we can dodge the Bryant Park Hotel mark up.

Just one last question remains. Which shoes? We are hoping to make it across the street to Andaz, which has a great bar. Every girl knows wedges are more practical. But how will that raffia effect cope with puddles?

I have decided the metallic effect, and that little 0.5 inch platform, will be just the ticket for negotiating a rain soaked 2 minute walk.

And as I blog and faff around with shoes TLOML has filled the bath with water (Bloomberg's suggestion) and moved the TV away from the window.

I think we're hurricane ready.

It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good

Or so they say.

Hurricane Irene qualifies as a pretty ill wind, I think. Yesterday we were scoffing at people buying battery-operated radios and stocking up on tinned foods. Alarmist fools, we thought. Today we are the ones to be scoffed at... we are suddenly hurricane refugees.

Rabbit Hutch Towers is in 'low lying' Zone A, where a mandatory evacuation has been declared. We're literally half a block away from Zone B, where people are allowed to stay put. I suppose they have to draw the line somewhere. Too bad for us it's not 100 metres further West.

Then again, the people in Zone B are probably inundated with Zone A-ers fleeing their buildings. A girl in our building told us she is going to stay with a friend on 23rd and 8th, literally 2 blocks away. As an aside, the adrenalin and sense of emergency has engendered a new spirit of friendliness, it seems: that's the first time I've ever exchanged more than 2 words with a neighbour in the Rabbit Hutch Towers elevator. It's almost like London in the Blitz.

Except that unlike London in the Blitz, we are not being submitted to months of sustained heavy bombing. Instead, we are in the path of Irene, who according the NY Times Hurricane Irene tracker is going to have blown herself into a storm (rather than a hurricane) by the time it passes the coast of New York on Sunday morning.  TLOML and I, nature's optimists, reckon we're due for a few hours of crazy wind and rain, and no lasting damage. Still, given the Hurricane Katrina fallout, it's perhaps not surprising that Mayor Bloomberg is erring on the side of caution.

Anyway, as I said, it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good... We are booked into a suite 20 minutes walk away, at the Bryant Park Hotel, courtesy of TLOML's insurance, where we will wait out the storm while enjoying room service and fluffy bath robes. The Bryant Park Hotel has the advantage of being firmly far from the river, on fairly high ground, and having an excellent in house sushi restaurant. Plus a cellar bar should we need to move away from the windows. We think it's a pretty good evacuation outcome.

Fingers crossed we - and the rest of New York - will return to our home on Monday with no harm done.