10:34 am

Just heard the news, and it’s all bad. This could really be the big one. Have now picked the kids up from school and daycare, and we’re trying to decide what to do. Do we stay and ride out the storm, or do we flee inland?

10:52 am

We had a pretty intense debate about whether to flee, or to sit it out, and I confess to having raised my voice in anger a couple of times. I’m usually mild-mannered, but the stress is changing me. We’re well insured, but I’ve done so much work to this place over the last five years, and the storm might obliterate all of it. That would crush me.

12:13 pm

Okay, so we’ve decided to sit it out. It’s a bit of a risk, I know, but I expect it’s probably too late to run away anyway. And, besides, where would we go? The roads will probably be gridlocked with people fleeing, and we all know how busy the Southern Motorway can be even on good days.

1:43 pm

Went to Mitre 10 Mega to pick up some wooden boards for the windows. I’m astonished at the lack of preparation everywhere I look. Don’t people understand what is about to hit us? The guy in the timber department looked at me as if I was crazy when I asked if there had been a run on boards.

3:56 pm

It took a couple of hours to board the windows and doors up. I had the radio on while I worked, but the station seemed more interested in other news. It’s only one of the biggest storms this century!

4:08 pm

This is the last straw for me. Where is Civil Defence? Why hasn’t the Prime Minister made any sort of public statement on the impending storm? And David Shearer is no better. Damn the lot of them to hell! I’m done with politicians. If they don’t care about the danger being faced by me and my family then I have nothing but contempt for the lot of them.

4:43 pm

Unbelievable! My neighbour is outside mowing his lawn. His lawn! In a few hours his lawn will most likely be a heap of mud, debris and fallen trees! I felt like going outside and screaming at him and his wife “you fools! Run for your lives!”, but then I thought screw it, your time is coming. When this shit gets real and they don’t have food or water, they call all go to hell. They’ll get no help from me.

6:09 pm

Got to the supermarket. Was expecting a run on clean water and canned goods, but the place was quiet. Filled four trolleys with non-perishable food and other supplies. Emptied the bank account, but I expect an unpaid mortgage will be the least of my worries once this storm hits.

6:34 pm: 

Turned on the radio. They’re talking about the All Black selections. Who cares about a bloody rugby team when one of the worst storms in a century is bearing down upon the east coast?

7:50 pm

There’s still so much to do and I’ll have to work through the night, but we decided to sit down and talk to the kids about what’s going to happen over the next day or two. I tried not to scare them, but they need to be prepared. I’m not a religious man, but after we had our talk I got the old family Bible out and we had a wee prayer. Feeling a bit better now.

6:21 am

So a crazy thing happened. It turns out, would you believe it, that this storm is actually going to hit the east coast of the US, and not New Zealand. It’s a crazy thing, I know. So all this bother and expense was for nothing. At times like these you can get angry and demand that someone pays for getting it so badly wrong, or you can just let it go and have a laugh. I’ve decided to get angry.

7:14 am

What really dismays me is that nobody else seemed to take the warning seriously. There was no sense of urgency within the local community, and Civil Defence seemed to go missing in action. In some ways I hope a storm like this does hit us soon, because it will serve the bastards all right when they’re swept to their deaths.

8:12 am

One thing consoling me is that we now have our survival kit sorted. We have canned goods to last at least a year, and hundreds of litres of bottled water; and I spent all last night burrowing a bunker underneath the house (it led to the collapse of part of the foundations, but what price the safety of my family?). I’ve just gone online and ordered a stack of weapons from a legit looking US site, so we’re ready in case there’s looting and other lawlessness. I’m just hoping Customs doesn’t cause me too many problems when a crate full of mortars and RPGs turns up at the border with my name on it.

9:02 am

It turns out that I might just need that survival kit after all. There’s a zombie apocalypse coming!