Guest Column: When Irene Blew Through Blue Hills Drive

I really thought the storm would be a non-event. I figured on lots of media coverage, lots of extra boxes of cookies and cans of tuna.

And it was a non-event, until about 11 pm, Saturday night.

A tornado watch was issued for Monmouth County, but not near us, no worries right? 

Sure, until a huge tree came down in the middle of the road. Everyone was outside with flash lights. Wind was whipping things around like crazy. Two more crashes and the fire department came. One of the trees fell on a neighbor’s car and crushed it.

They told us to sleep in the basement in case the transformer blew up because all of the poles and wires were down on the road.

Also, we didn’t know which trees would come down next.

We didn't sleep much and woke up to a scene outside that I never expected. It looks like a tornado had hit our block. Downed trees, power lines on the ground, a pole and transformer in the street and our block closed off with caution tape!  Branches were everywhere! That was Day One!

Five days without power is not so bad if you have a generator. Unless someone wants to play Xbox, someone else wants to do laundry, run the dishwasher then dry their hair -- all at the same time. 

We aren't used to doing things in stages and we all take for granted just how much electricity we use.

The weather was beautiful so out we went. Cross Farms Park is beautiful, not to mention branch- and leaf-free, and a good way to avoid the backyard and street mess. Just have to get around those downed wires safely. Kids can run around, play baseball or bike ride and have a blast. No mess to worry about.

Grilling outside was perfect since we couldn't use the air conditioner and didn't want to heat up the house. We also played lots of board games! We are grateful that we could charge our Ipods!

When we saw the crews on our block Thursday at about 5:30 p.m., we cheered and watched them hang wires.

When we got our power back at 8:30 p.m., we ran the pool sweep, dishwasher, laundry and, of course, the Xbox -- all at once!

It was not fun but we are all safe and glad it is over! I definitely appreciate my life a lot more. I guess we all have it better than we think.