As someone who comes from Mumbai, I am used to a hot humid climate, with high temperatures. I am even used to heavy rains and floods.
So last week when my dad informed me that there was going to be a hurricane hitting North Carolina, my attitude was like its going to be fine, I am going to be fine.
At least that is what I thought towards the beginning of last week.
The week of September 17th, 2018 has by far been the most stressful, spontaneous and surprising week of my life so far.
I was informed of the hurricane on Sunday morning and my instant reaction to this news was "meh. I have survived floods before, I am going to be fine."
On Monday, I received a few cautionary text messages and realized that maybe I should prepare myself a little. I decided it would be best to stock up on supplies and clean my room and prepare myself for the storm approaching us.
I continue with the rest of my day and hope for the best.
By Monday evening, the storm had grown stronger and NC State had announced that we would not have classes after 5 pm on Wednesday. At this point, I was more excited that I had the week off and was happy about the hurricane.
On Tuesday, I was informed that the storm had grown stronger and that NC State was going to cancel classes beginning noon on Wednesday.
By Tuesday afternoon, I had started receiving emails from the university that we should stay in and take care and avoid getting out as much as possible. By this point, I had also received several alerts about how this was going to be one of the most devastating storms to hit North Carolina and how dangerous it was going to be.
By this time I received an alert saying how it would be better to vacate Raleigh since then, we would be out of the "eye of the hurricane". At this point, panic filled me and I decided to go online and actually read how bad this storm was actually going to be. When I went online, I found that Raleigh washing to get 20 inches of rain, floods and harsh winds beginning Wednesday.
I began to stress out and did not know what I was going to do in case of a power outage, flood, and heavy rain.
After talking to my parents, It was decided that it would be best for me to leave Raleigh for the next couple of weeks and it was decided I would go stay with my friend in Cincinnati.
In about an hour, we decided that in twelve hours, I would be taking a flight to Cincinnati. Thus making it the most spontaneous trip and decision I had ever made.
Once I was out of Raleigh I continued to track the hurricane and was rather surprised to find out that the hurricane kept changing its path and actually affected more places.
I had heard about hurricanes before, but this was my first ever experience of a hurricane and the experience was exciting, thrilling and the most stressful thing I had ever experienced before.
By far, this has been the most absurd week of my life so far and one hell of a "first hurricane" experience.
