The world is ending

I, along with a good portion of the state, have an unexpected and unprecedented day off. Since the first week back to school after vacation is always hard, this day off is very appreciated. I'd like to thank the storm that is moving through the state.

It seems like we've been having way more emergency-like days and inclement weather in the past three years or so. Let's see, there was the time where it poured for weeks and weeks and then there was the earthquake that shut everything down for a weekend. In 2007, there was another storm that brought high winds with it that knocked down trees (huge ones, too) and knocked out the power and (the best part) shut down a lot of schools. The funny thing about that one was that the day before it happened, my friend from New York was grumbling because the weather was so horrible and she had just been told by us that Hawaii never has "snow days" unless there's a hurricane. And just the other month, it was raining so hard that rain in come through my sky light, parts of the island flooded, and some schools were closed.

So the reason I think the world is ending this time is because during all of these events, this is the first time that the public schools have actually been shut down the day before. Every other time they waited until it was very clear that having classes would be unsafe. Even when Hurricane Iniki hit in 1992, the state waited until that morning to close the schools. In addition to the schools being closed, they actually decided yesterday to also shut down the UH campuses and give all non-essential state and city workers the day off. This is crazy. I don't think its ever happened before, at least not that I can remember. I'm amazed that the state is actually taking precautions early for once.

We put everything outside away and tied down the outside furniture yesterday so all we can do now is huddle under some blankets and enjoy the ride. Thankfully the electricity's up and running.