Notes on Surviving a Hurricane

from here

Take the candles out of their hiding spots, all of them. Pull the tea lights from the back of the cabinet with the blue table cloth. Spread the table cloth across the dining room table and array the lights.
Take the thin tapers from behind the liquor bottles- take out the whiskey and the rum while you're there.  Pour. Fill as many candle holders as you own with tapers, and leave the rest on the mantle.
Set multi-wicked jar candles in the bathrooms and along the hallways leading from the dining room to the bathroom.

Light them all while the power is still on. Let them make up for the missing warmth.

Let each sputter lead to another and wait for the freight train wind lashed with rain, the approaching sirens. Breath, quick sharp shallow huddled. Breath, the sirens are not for us. As iron skinned engines doppler into the distance, thankfully count problems like blessings. Count problems like candles, like lit wicks burning down, that must burn down and die.

Place buckets beneath anything that leaks.