Life (and death) do not stop for a hurricane

So, I work for an electricity provider that services 14 counties in the central part of the state. When we were tracking hurricane Ike, many of the "spaghetti models" had it poised to hit & severely affect a portion, if not most of our service area.
*gulp*
When I say, "hit", I mean HIT - wide spread power outages, upwards of 200 people mobilized to either perform, or support the performance of power restoration, - the works.
I am the Food & Lodging coordinator for my company, which means I had to establish a plan, assign personnel, acquire food, secure lodging etc for all personnel working the storm. I've never done that before & while I have lots of people assigned to assist, it was (and still is) a scary undertaking.
Everything I was working on at work was immediately suspended in order to prepare for this storm.
Life, however, does not stop for a hurricane. There are still bills to pay, you still have to keep a child entertained, clean house etc. If you are hit by the storm, it's even worse - assessment & clean up, dealing with insurance agencies......
Death also does not stop for a hurricane.
Scully suffered what we feel may have been a stroke. At the vet appt Friday, the vet said she was beginning to go into heart failure. Things did not look good for Buggy & while we were preparing for that to be the case, we still had to make the tough decision to end her life. Her quality of life had deteriorated such that she could no longer run and play & rough house with Zooey, much less comfortably get off the sofa. Even if we had chosen to run test & begin treatment, she may not have ever fully recovered. We felt it was time.
We were so impressed with the level of compassion expressed by our vet & the technician that were there with us. Amy, the tech, has a Rhodesian of her own & Scully immediately took to her. Scully LOVED going to the vet. After we decided it was her time, both Amy and the vet came in to be with us & Scully in her last moments. They petted her, and cried with us, and you could tell they genuinely cared for her - not just as a patient, but as the good dog she was. We are very thankful to them.
Scully Bug would have been 12 yrs old next month and we were privileged to have her as part of our family for the last 8 yrs. I know Chris is going to write some about her & will post some pictures later on. We'll miss the old girl.
So, go hug your dog if you have one. Hug a person if you've got one. Hunker down for the storm - prepare for the worst & pray for the best.