This is not a drill! ... or is it?

Last week, Alfred woke me in the morning as he left for work (at the usual time of 5:00am) and told me there was a big storm headed to Jamaica. I am not my best at 5:00am so I rolled over and promptly forgot that there was a big storm headed to Jamaica. Imagine, then, my suprise when, a day later, he tells me to go and get mucho dolleros from the bank and buy a ton of canned goods. In response to my look of total confusion, he informs me that the big storm is now hurricane Dean and is headed our way. Well, I go on high alert and begin to question the locals. "what are the chances we'll be hit?" The unanimous answer was "we won't be - never will happen". No one is panicking so I slowly go about buying a ton of canned goods and other supplies. A day later we are under a tropical storm watch and everywhere we go people are talking hurricane. I start to pack boxes of food and get the girls to pack bags with clothing, etc for three days. (finally I need a 72 hour kit and I can't remember what I'm supposed to have in it!) Friday I make my last trip into Dangriga for supplies. We have decided that we need rubber boots (OK, don't look at me like that. It may be obvious to you but I didn't think of it! There was a lot going on) and that, in addition to all the candles I had bought, we should have hurricane lamps and keroscene. By now I am living on fumes as sleep deprivation has overcome me and I go to the store muttering 'If we needed hurricane lamps why did you tell me to get candles and if we have candles why do we need hurricane lamps? I'm pretty sure the candles work. I guess because they are HURRICANE lamps and we are in for a HURRICANE ...' Whatever.' So I find hurricane lamps in, what can only be described as the bad part of Dangriga. (An oxymoron if ever I heard one.) I buy two lamps for $10 each. Then I head out to find keroscene. I ask at no fewer than three hardware stores before someone tells me I can get it at the Texaco store on the way out of town. Yay! I'm outta there. At the texaco store (gas station for the uninitiated) I discover that the keroscene is in the pumps and you need a gas container to get it. Does the Texaco sell gas containers? Of course not, what are you thinking? I need to go to the hardware store for a gas container. Back I go to the hardware store where I can only buy a 5 gallon gas container. Feeling quite confident we don't need 5 gallons of keroscene for two very tiny hurricane lamps, I ask for $20 worth. Now I am done! I head home feeling very prepared. Later I show Alfred my purchases feeling pretty smug. He decides to try the hurricane lamps. Both of which promptly fall apart! I guess $10 Belize ($5 USD) doesn't buy much for quality. This would be when I find out that one of the chinese stores in town has hurricane lamps. I ignore the feelings of disgust when I think of the unnecessary half-hour dive back and forth from Dangriga and we toddle off to the chinese store to try and discern, through the shrink wrap, if any of the hurricane lamps looks more likely to work than the others. Finally we just guess. Then Alfred has to endure being laughed at by the chinese guy when he tells him he needs more water. Apperantly 5 large jugs of water is an unheard of ammount. Even when you are looking a hurricane in the eye, so to speak, and may be unable to get water for a very long time. We are ready just in time. The TS warning has been upgraded to a hurricane warning. We are otta here. Off to Belmopan in two vehicles, so we can take a generator with us, we head to the sister of one of Alfred's co-workers. Tina is just a real sweetheart and her family are wonderful, even if they do dress a little funny. (they are mennonite) They have prepared for the hurricane too. They have bought all manner of junk food so that while we stay up all night watching the storm, we have something to snack on! Someone checks the hurricane web site every 5 or 10 minutes for updates. No one seems to care that the site only updates every 3-4 hours. And we wait. At 11:00ish, we all decide to go to bed and get some sleep while we can. We are sure the storm will wake us when it arrives. Sure enough, at 3:30, I wake to the sound of rain. I wake Brynn and Kori so they won't yell at me for letting them sleep through it and then I go back to bed. It rains for about half an hour. No wind. No thunder. No trees down. Nothing. The next morning we go home secure in the knowledge we did the right thing. After all, we got rain. Hopkins got nothing at all!