Sandy in Summit!
It's a bit after 7PM and Sandy made landfall at about 6PM according to the weather people. Just as we were beginning Vespers at 5:30 we had a short power outage. Sr. Maureen was intoning, "O God, come to my assistance!" And we were singing in response, "Lord, make haste to help me!" What you couldn't hear sung between that the Gloria Patri was, "Please-keep-the-power-on-so-we-can-praise-You-with-Vespers!" The Lord DID come to our assistance and we've had a few flickers but amazingly we still have power...obviously, since this is being written!
The wind and lightening and rain is fierce. Nearly half of our monastery building is either Church or Choir so the gusts of wind hitting the windows shakes the building. All the skylights are jumping and rattling as well.
Not much else to do but pray, wait, live our monastic life trusting that our Lord will watch over us!