Good Ridance to Irene...........

The sun is shining, and it's become a beautiful day here in Ocean City. Last night we listened to the wind howling, rain pelting the hotel, but it was like a bad northeaster'...not a hurricane. The tides were high but didn't come over the sea wall, and this morning there isn't as much sand on the boardwalk as is usually the case. So aside from guttering and shingles blowing off, we made out well. Unfortunately the mayor, idiot that he is, allowed business owners and property owners back into town this morning starting at 9:00 (this isn't the stupid part), but is allowing the tourists back in starting at noon. Why is that stupid? Well, they bussed all the foreign students out of town on Thursday leaving us with no help starting on Thursday and will not be bringing them back from Baltimore (where they have been in shelters) until Monday. So meanwhile, we have tenants who have already called and are coming in today, since the town will be open for business at noon, and we have no way to get all the units ready for them. Nor will restaurants be able to open with no employees, so thank you Rick Meehan. Keep in mind we now also have to get all the preparation we did, reversed, so storm windows have to be taken down and that is always a little bit of a struggle as they are screwed in and heavy, and all the other things that we've put in storerooms has to be taken out and put back where it goes, and all the apartments have to have their porch furniture taken back out and put in place and we have a limited crew here. So right now Sara and Mary are tackling the cleaning of apartments, and Anna and Toot, two of our housekeepers from Snow Hill, have been called and while they are not thrilled (thinking they were off until tomorrow) they are on their way to assist. All the men are outside trying to reverse the preparations and because I threw my back out getting something out of my suitcase on Saturday morning I'm manning the phones. Salty Yarns remains closed until tomorrow, and I'm O.K. with that. Anyway, we're all in good shape, relatively, I could stand to lose a few pounds, but Irene really isn't responsible for my weight, and aside from that we came through with flying colors, as far as we know. I'm sure we will have some leaks due to shingles being blown off, but nothing that can't be fixed. And as always after a storm it's gorgeous out. We did get a few pictures and Andre who stayed here with us did reports every couple of hours from the front porch during the actual storm which he then put on you tube. This was Andres first time in Ocean City, he lives in Baltimore. He came to help us out this summer and while one would think he'd be leary of a hurricane, he simply couldn't wait to get out into it. So if you have a chance, you can listen to his reporting on you tube. I hope everyone who saw the storm pass their way did as well as we did and we'll be talking to you soon. I'll get our pictures up on the blog as soon as possible.