Warning: Hurricane Coming! How to deal with this and the storms of growing up

From CBS evening News

With Hurricane Sandy descending on the East coast of the USA over the next 24 hours, we have been busy preparing for the "perfect storm". 

In our house it is colliding with the deadline for the first round of college applications. (Nov 1- aaagh!).  It is also Halloween and unless you have taken a trip to another planet you probably know it is the last week of campaigning before the US election. At least the 24/7 news shows have something other than the election to talk about....