Originally published on August 27, 2011.
I’m from Ohio, so I’m used to tornados. Or at least tornado warnings. You sort of know one might be coming, but there’s not much warning. In school, we spent a lot of time practicing tornado drills, just in case a giant funnel cloud suddenly descended from the sky. Our high school mascot was even a tornado. So I get tornados.
But we didn’t see many hurricanes in Ohio. Hurricane Irene is my first one. And so far, as we sit here waiting for the storm to hit, my first impression is that hurricanes involve a lot of, well, waiting. And preparation. And then more waiting.
Since we don’t really know what we’re getting until it gets here…and since I live just around the corner from the shop, and just around the corner from the evacuation zone, determining opening hours has been an exercise in playing it by ear.
The plan: stay at the shop until one of three things happened:
- Customers stopped coming in the door
- Wind and rain started to threaten a safe trip home
- My husband called in need of backup to deal with three building-bound kiddos
How to communicate this to those hunkering down and needing wine? The old school Door Sign + Chalkboard Method worked pretty well.
The Chalkbaord
The Door Sign
And…in case you’re wondering. I shut down around 4.30PM. And the kiddos had nothing to do with it!