How is a woman like a hurricane?

This one's going down in the history books, or so they say. Hurricane Sandy or "Frankenstorm" as they attempted to nickname it will be making landfall sometime tonight. It will bring wind, rain, flooding, snow and even death to the Eastern seaboard. So far Sandy ravaged the Caribbean leaving millions of dollars worth of damage and a hefty body count. What will it do here?

 
They already predict days of power outages. Grocery stores are running out of bottled water. Mostly every business in our area is shutting down early today and will be closed tomorrow. The crazy thing is we are at least a 3 hour drive from the ocean. This thing is massive. It will have harmful effects as far west as Ohio. I'm trying to be positive and hope that it's nowhere as bad as they are predicting.

Here in the suburbs of Washington DC in Maryland, we don't usually experience severe weather as in other areas in the country. although there have been tornadoes, massive snow storms, severe thunderstorms and even an earthquake in recent times. Nothing like what's coming up the bend.

I'll never forget back in 2004. My daughter was all of 2 month's old. We lived in a small 2 bedroom ground level apartment. They starting running alerts through the emergency broadcast system. It was a tornado warning coming right through where we lived. The map on the weather broadcast had our city on it right smack in the middle of the tornado's path. They warned to stay away from windows and be prepared to lose power. We had a medium sized walk-in closet in our bedroom. I pushed our easy chair and ottoman in there. We sat the baby's carrier on the ottoman and all the pillows on the floor and were ready to spend the rest of the evening in this cave. The warning passed and we never had the chance to hideout but I knew then that I would have to protect them from nature for the rest of my life.

My current job takes me 45 miles north to the Inner Harbor area of Baltimore City. It's on the water, although not on the ocean. Hurricanes in the past have flooded the neighborhood know as Fells Point. It has destroyed the marinas and the boats in them. My boss had afforded me the privilege of having a hotel room at the ready in case I couldn't get out of town before the worst of the storm. Also so I could be at arm's length if the power were to go out and we had to seal the walk-in coolers to keep our perishables safe. Also to jump into action in the event of flooding in our store. I stayed last night, but today I was apprehensive about staying.

I had left my wife, daughter and elderly parents at home to fend for themselves. Something in my gut was telling me that this was a bad idea. I feel that my duty first and foremost as a man is to tend to the safety and well being of my family. I could not do that miles away in a double room at the Courtyard. I knew deep down if something drastic would have happened to one of them while I was gone, I would have never forgiven myself. I kindly and respectfully declined the hotel room for a second night and asked that they understand that my duty is with my loved ones and that I have to be there.

When they first arrive they are wet and wild, but when they leave, they take your house and your car.