I just received a Christmas letter from my friend Mona.  Yep, I received her holiday letter in the middle of February.  Let me just say that Mona is VERY on top of things.  What caused her letter to be late was a combination of her not having my current address and December’s windstorm.  Mona didn’t have power for almost TWO WEEKS!  And I thought we had it rough with our two days without power.

As promised here is some of what we learned from the windstorm:

1. Keep your vehicle’s gas level to at least half full.   After the windstorm people in the Puget Sound area discovered that there are very few gas stations equipped with generators to pump gas.  Stations had gas but no way to dispense it.  The gas stations with a way to pump gas were inundated with customers.  There were horror stories about folks waiting in line for hours just to fill their gas tanks or to fill their gas cans for their generators.

2. Have some cash on hand.  There were a few stores open the day after the windstorm but the stores had no way of verifying checks or accepting credit cards.  It was a cash-only situation.

3. Have a stock of food, batteries and candles.  Luckily we’re folks on a budget. That means we do a lot of shopping at Costco and Sam’s Club.  Our basement is full of cans of beans, corn and peanut butter.   We buy our batteries the same way.