IT'S NOT QUITE eating crow.

And yet, I need to come right out and say it: Spotsylvania County's Wade Stallings was right.

He's the one I visited on the day Hurricane Isabel roared into our area, the engineer by trade who had worked hard to tape his windows and then cover them with thick sheets of plywood.

On top of that, he got a power supply worked out, stocked up on groceries and secured everything in his yard.

He also went as far as thinking about the storm's aftermath, buying sheets of plastic and two-by-fours to make needed repairs.

As I stood there in the growing winds and rain in Stallings' yard, it seemed he was overdoing it. It wouldn't be that bad.

And yet, on the morning after Isabel, as I made a swing through the region, it became all too clear that there's no such thing as too much preparation for a serious hurricane like this.

Sure, most of us didn't get our windows blown out.

But hundreds of people in the region, possibly thousands, did have trees smack into a house, a car, a shed or other property.

Anyone living on the shore of a local river wouldn't doubt the need for serious preparations.

Those who reacted as I did, doing little, probably came to regret it once the storm hit and power went.

Batteries?

I had a few somewhere in a drawer, I was sure.

As a last-minute afterthought, I cruised thorough a local store looking for some D batteries.

All they had left were some AAs, so I took them, thinking they'd power the handful of mini flashlights we've accumulated.

Guess what we used once Isabel hit and darkness arrived?

Yep, the minis.

Thank goodness for them, though I'll say that trying to read by a tiny light is enough to make you yearn for a kerosene lamp.

In retrospect, the one thing I did right was pulling out the little generator I bought years ago.