“Isabel wasn’t as big and it caused widespread power outages, loss of property and some lives.”
You aren’t kidding. For us in central MD, it was mostly an inconvenience - for some reason, there was hardly even any dry ice to go around! We had some power out for a while. It was a bit surreal and we also had another tree from my parents’ fall down. The neighbor’s tree fell down in the front yard, too, luckily not into their house/garage.
But worse was my uncle who would die of colon cancer the next month. He was down on the water in Northern Neck area of VA, trying to recover from surgery. His brother from ME had come down with he wife to care for him at that time - bad timing! They had to have coolness for him and his medical items and there was no power for a week and no ice! We drove all around our region looking for any kind of ice - finally a seafood place let my dad have a ton of regular ice in the trunk and my dad and ME/healthy uncle met at the Potomac to transfer this ice!
I’m so very sorry to hear that. It can be dangerous for people with an illness to be without power. We lost it for 3 days and thank God, we are healthy.