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Just peepin’ in before I go to sleep. The awful rainstorms have finally abated and there haven’t been any tornado watches or warnings tonight.

The NWS flood watches and warnings are continuing to arrive via my e-mail subscription to AccuWeather.com, so I hope the other shoe doesn’t drop tomorrow like it did after Gustav. One of the bulletins was quite ominous and mentioned that most flood deaths occur in automobiles — “Turn Around, Don’t Drown.” This reminded me of previous posts earlier in the storm about warnings of “certain death” for those who didn’t evacuate — I wonder, is this a new trend with NWS warnings or is it just the seriousness of this particular storm?

A special shout-out to those who aren’t allowed to go home yet — being kept in suspense is truly awful. I lived in an apartment complex that was located alongside the Hackensack River in New Jersey in the early 1990’s. There was a very dangerous storm that made the river rise to unprecedented levels, and suddenly the police started pounding on the doors of every apartment in my building. They demanded that I evacuate immediately and they wouldn’t leave until they were sure I was out of there. I had been contemplating leaving, but I had an elderly cat and power was out at the local hotels. I didn’t know where else to go because I couldn’t take my cat to the Red Cross shelter set up at a nearby school. Meanwhile, the police weren’t taking no for an answer, so I jumped in my car with my cat carrier and no clue as to where we were headed. I finally accepted the invitation of a former neighbor who had moved to a house on top of a steep hill in Norwalk, Connecticut — it scared the daylights out of me driving across the George Washington Bridge in such high winds. Once I left, I couldn’t get any straight answers from the local authorities about whether or not it was OK to come home and I ended up staying in Norwalk for several days. Apparently I could have returned sooner, because my employer was located just the other side of the New Jersey Turnpike and the boss was furious with me for staying away as long as I did. I simply couldn’t get anyone to tell me what was going on at my home.

Unfortunately, it’s stuff like that which makes people think twice about evacuating the next time disaster strikes. So, here’s a special prayer for those people sitting in parking lots and rest stops, charging your cell phones with your car batteries — I hope you will be able to return to your property soon and assess the damage for yourselves.