We survived! Turns out we'd cleverly chosen one of the safest places in the city to live during the hurricane, being in central Brooklyn has its perks when most of the threat is coming from the coast. We stayed cosied up in our apartment listening to the wind and rain, with only an occasional flickering of the lights to indicate that it was any more than a bad storm. Other parts of the city weren't so lucky, lower Manhattan blacked out and was widely flooded, we'd have been badly affected if we were still in our July digs. My beloved (ha) Williamsburg was also affected. I highly recommend a read of this if you want more insight into why I feel the way I do about the area and some of its inhabitants.

At about 11pm last night Mr declared that it didn't sound so bad outside and he couldn't really tell what all the fuss was about… Despite the fact that he hadn't been out all day and I'd had to take a long walk to feed Harrison the cat, leaving me looking like this –

To be fair to him, it was his birthday, the one day of the year when you're allowed to be lazy, no questions asked, so he's off the hook. I still like to be right though, so I took him outside for a bit and, annoyingly, it wasn't that bad at all. The eye of the storm had passed by then and our street wasn't showing much sign of damage. Determined to prove that a hurricane had indeed passed through, I headed out today to see what destruction I could find.

Initially I just came across lots of snapped off branches and leaves, many of which were already being cleared by diligent residents, as well as officials.

Then I started to find small trees that had lost their battle with the wind.

Sometimes two at a time.

As I turned the corner onto Macdonough Street it became apparent that it wasn't only little trees that had lost their battle.

Oh shiz.

Oh SHIZ.

Shiz got really real for this poor little car.

Roots on the tree ripped right out of the ground.

The residents of the house on the receiving end of the tree, trying to clear up. They looked in surprisingly good spirits….

…Despite the fact that a fellow onlooker told me that one of the people in the house had just left her car when the tree fell. Her car is now buried under a pile of branches, which isn't quite as bad as the whole trunk, but it's still far from ideal, eh?

Happily, it seems that the cobwebs/toilet paper so beloved here is pretty hardy and barely affected by the storm at all.

Though this scarecrow did end up a little wonky.

I leave you with my favourite Halloween decoration so far. Cacooned man!

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