Hurricane Irene

[delsdad]

Old news, for CT anyway! :D:

Funny thing about this storm is that I thought I would have had better chances seeing something like this during my CP, and not up here in CT! The eye of Irene is going almost directly over my town. Only concerns are that we aren't really engineered for hurricanes. There's a shelter open in my town but I'm hunkering down at home. The heavy rains are starting now and the winds are picking up a bit. Here goes nothing!

-Monorail_Red

Stay safe Red !

To qoute a Facebook friend "This might be the first time people have traveled TO Florida to escape a hurricane !"

[Planner]

DC area seemed to do OK, lots of power outages but otherwise OK. Never have been able to sleep well during a big storm so a nice long nap is in order after yard clean up.

Stay safe points north!

[hobie16]

Some music to listen to during the storm:

REO Speedwagon—“Ridin’ the Storm Out”
Florence and the Machine—“Hurricane Drunk”
The Doors—“Riders on the Storm”
Neil Young—“Like A Hurricane”
Pearl Jam—“Evacuation”
Bonnie Raitt—“Storm Warning”
Scorpions—“Rock You Like A Hurricane”
Garbage-"Only Happy When It Rains"

[Monorail_Red]

Well it's over, and I was not impressed because the news media made such a big thing about it. I mean I feel for those in my area that have property damage, but it was just some wind and rain. I did loose power and have been operating the generator for about 15hrs now. We'll see how long it lasts.

Monorail_Red

[WEDFan]

The storm is over here, but we're still holding our breath on flooding. Schoharie Creek and the Mohawk River are potential trouble spots in my neck of the woods, and they're nervous about the Gilboa dam.

[DragonFox98]

Not doing so great in South Jersey. A tornado touched down in my town; it was about two miles away and in an unoccupied area for the most part, so that was ok. But we were the Isle of DragonFox for awhile....water surrounded us everywhere. But none came in the house, the neighbor's tree stayed upright, and the river (the Delaware River) stayed in its banks. However.....

Then came the leaching of the groundwater. Everyone's basement and crawlspace now has water in it. Mine has about 4 inches. All I can saw is thank goodness that someone was intelligent when they built the house and the HVAC unit is up on cinder blocks. So, that's all. Not so bad. I do believe that the media made this storm out waaay worse than it actually was. My goodness, if you listened to Fox 29 here in Philly, you'd think it was the end of the world.

You guys take care and hopefully no one was too badly damaged or flooded.

[WEDFan]

Two historic sites/museums in my area have been flooded. One was the 1749 home of Sir William Johnson, First Baronet of New York. The collections had been moved to the second floor and were above the flood waters, but the damage to the building will be considerable.

[Lasolimu]

What I'm hearing is that a lot of places weren't hit very hard, but here and there it was crazy with a lot of damage.

[WEDFan]

What I'm hearing is that a lot of places weren't hit very hard, but here and there it was crazy with a lot of damage.

The issue in this case isn't the storm itself, but the flooding in Irene's wake. There is a dam in Gilboa and the water level was 8' above the dam. If the dam were to let go there would be major destruction along Schoharie Creek, the Mohawk River and into the Hudson River -- possibly all the way to NYC. They released a huge amount of water to protect the dam, which in turned caused fairly severe flooding along the same path, but nothing like what would happen if the dam let go.

The storm itself didn't hit this area too hard. Tropical force winds -- maybe 35 sustained with gusts to 60. It knocked some trees down and a lot of people lost power, but it dumped at least 5" of rain everywhere, with some areas getting a foot of rain.

[DragonFox98]

We had a couple of roads in our county get washed out due to dams that broke. Not good. But you're right: it was here and there. The flooding is going to be the real problem with this storm. We received about 7" of rain. It was been the record setting month for rain. Ever. Not just for August. Ever. UGH I just want the rain to stop....it's not been fun this month.