Whew, that was close.

In recent years, Western Tidewater has had more than its fair share of unwanted and uninvited guests. You may recall them; their names were Floyd, Isabel and Irene.

Fortunately, we won’t be adding Sandy to the list.

The massive storm, which did heavy damage to some of our favorite places on the Outer Banks (we’ll especially miss Avalon Pier), flooded huge sections of Hampton Roads and flattened the Northeast with high winds and massive tidal surges, landed just far enough up the coast that our storm-weary community was largely spared any meaningful damage.

Had Sandy landed just 50 or 100 miles further south, however, we would likely have been far less lucky.

When bad weather approaches, the media (yes, even the Suffolk News-Herald) can sometimes seem to go a little overboard in its coverage of the impending event. But that’s because our collective experiences inform us these storms can be dangerous, damaging and deadly.

Sometimes a weather pattern will move slightly off its predicted course, leaving some very lucky communities relatively unscathed, albeit short on milk and bread.

When that happens, many accuse news outlets of making a big deal out of nothing.

When a storm makes a direct hit on a community, however, there’s no telling how many lives are saved because wise souls took heed of the warnings and got themselves and their families out of harm’s way.

We count our blessings today as we realize we were spared by a monster storm that was as big as any ever seen. Our thoughts and prayers are with those who were not.