Hurricane Irene

[oceanlovin'ea]

To all of our posters who are in the areas that were hit by the hurricane, please let us know how you fared and if you are okay or need help as soon as you can.

I know we are all thinking about you and hoping you are all safe. I'm not going to name names because I will leave out some and don't want to do that. Just let us know how you are when you can.

Linda, EA

[S T]

East Coast

Hi Linda and Others on the Eastern Coast
You and Dany and Brian in FL were on my mind, I talked with Peachie in Georgia, so hope all of you are safe.

I am good in NC - fortunately we are 200 miles from the Outerbanks NC, so not sure how everyone else is fairing out that way and the Coastal Comm that were affected by Moorhead and Atlantic Beach,

Hoping everyone is safe as "Irene" and the Rains continue up the Coast..

Sandy

[oceanlovin'ea]

I'm in the middle of the state. We felt no effects of the storm except for heat and supposedly drier weather because it pulled all the moisture with it. That said, we got 2 hours of steady hard rain yesterday afternoon.

I really don't think hardly any of Florida was affected by the storm.

I was wondering about Possi....Virginia Beach, VA. We also have some in Connecticut and New York.

Linda, EA

[Uncle Sam]

I'm 35 miles northwest of NYC and we got heavy rain storms.
Yes - some trees down, some flooded areas of the county. I personally wasn't
effected. The worst I got was a small puddle of water in the garage and
breezeway between the garage and house. The worst we have to fear now
are the after effects of heavy winds breaking down trees and overflow flooding.

The county across the Hudson River - Westchester - got hid hard
with floods of streets, businesses, rail lines, etc.
Emergency crews are still rescuing people from raft boats.

[erchess]

I didn't even get rained on

but then I'm close to the TN border. My understanding based on cursory attention to CNN is that in NC only the Outer Banks (barrier islands) and areas right on the beach or on the rivers and sounds got hit with more than a lot of rain. I think there are two or three users of this board who live in that affected area.

[Burke]

Outer Banks NC and Tidewater, VA were most affected with flooding and road damage, but as far inland as Raleigh and Richmond took the brunt of the winds & tremendous rain, area now suffering the after-effects of downed trees, power lines. Might take days to get power back to majority of customers, some may be out over a week. Only road to Corolla NC from Southern Shores washed out at Duck -- Sunset Grill, (Route 12). Also Hatteras Island lost it in the southern direction, so they are isolated too. That may take a while to repair.

[Gary2]

Though there was serious damage in other parts of MA, here, just east of north-central MA, it was a healthy dose of rain, lots of branches down, but not much else. One small birch went down, which surprised me, but I wanted it down anyway and it landed well.

Even the one bridge near me that floods out every few years seemed safe, though I suppose the water won't peak until today.

[gboykin]

My office is in Jacksonville NC, and I have a beach home on Emerald Isle. We had a lot of wind (68 mph sustained), but luckily, we had power restored within 12 hours and just had some tree debris to clean up. I have a couple trees that are leaning and need to come out, but will wait until it dies down so I won't have to pay the outrageous fees for removal right now. Keeping an eye on the next storm brewing, which originated in the same area as Irene. Can anyone say Bertha/Fran?

[JohnH]

I'm 9,700 miles from the hurricane (in India right now) , but my family is fine as we live several hundred miles inland. Thanks for the concern.

[taxmom34]

i am near the NH border in central MA, our city had some trees down , a lot of rain, but only scattered power outages. i suffered none of these.. but was thinking how KramGold was doing , she is in Cambridge which is a lot closer to the ocean and had a lot of damage. she has not responded here yet, so i'm assuming she still has no power

[Uncle Sam]

The storm left my area on Monday - yet there are areas in northern NJ and Orange and
Westchester County, New York that are STILL without power, knee deep flooding and some areas STILL are mandatory evacuation areas.

We've NEVER had storms this bad in this area.
Yes - heavy floods, power outages, structure damages, but never this severe.

[BOB W]

Back in 2005 my neighbors were laughing at me for installing a "whole house" natural gas generator. Guess who had the last laugh? My street was out of electric for 3 days. No damage to my homes, just a pain to cleanup. Clean up took 4 hours. (I'm still working on the pool though.)

I'm on Long Island (central suffolk county), eye hit about 50 miles to the west but had 60-70 mph winds. Small amount of trees down around me, one two blocks away (cause of my loss of electric). I got it back on Tuesday but the block with the tree down is still out.

[JG EA]

I'm 9,700 miles from the hurricane (in India right now) , but my family is fine as we live several hundred miles inland. Thanks for the concern.

Doing outsource work for off-season income no doubt.

[oceanlovin'ea]

It is so good to hear that many of you didn't suffer extreme damage. There are still a few that we are waiting to hear from. The longer we don't hear the more we will fear they are either still without power or had damage. Or maybe they did evacuate.

We hope to hear from the rest soon.

Linda, EA

[Lion]

Fairfield County, CT

Irene was still a hurricane when it hit Weston. We're OK and our house seems OK other than a flooded garage and some water in the basement. However, we still don't have power and it may be midnight next Wednesday. Around here, no power means no water, no flushing toilets, etc. We thought we were well prepared with drinking water, batteries, two coolers with food and ice, our only bathtub and basement set tub filled with water for flushing, outdoor furniture secured, etc. But, after six days we've emptied the tubs and used up the food in the coolers and tossed out the food in our refrigerators and freezers. Lugging those buckets has stirred up my back injury and is not playing nice with my husband's brand new shoulder replacement. The middle school opened its pool locker rooms for showers, sinks, toilets as of this past Monday; boy did that bring back memories! And the library opened last Monday and is staying open late now for recharging electronics; it even upgraded its wifi so more people can use it at a time. The Curves for Women where I work out opened Tuesday, so I've been working out and showering there each evening. Planet Fitness opened its showers to non-members, so my husband is showering there now. Restaurants and grocery stores in surrounding towns are opening again, so we can buy food and ice. The school also has hoses for us to fill buckets with water, but driving it home up our hill leaves more water in the car than we get into our house. Right now, we're draining the water heater to use for flushing.

I thought I was prepared for my home office by having a backup on an external hard drive and one in the cloud last Saturday, charging my laptop and netbook and cell, etc. After recharging my netbook Monday at the library and buying time on an external AT&T modem, Tuesday morning the on/off button wouldn't work. And, after getting a bit of work done at the library Tuesday, I discovered that my laptop can no longer recognize my external hard drive and that my cloud backup has a corrupted file for my tax software. In addition we kept getting kicked off the internet with way too many people trying to use the town wifi. I was working for clients Wednesday and Thursday that have generators. Today I set up in a spare office at my chiropractor's; he loaned me keys and his cord to connect to his internet. And, my laptop finally "sees" my backup drive! (And my netbook turns on again.) NJ and NY residents have extended deadlines, but not CT. And, I'm not sure if I qualify for the one-week extension for business returns, as I wasn't in an evacuation area but in a shelter-in-place area (we could not evacuate as roads were/are impassable). My clients are angry, and I'm really going to have to buy a generator before the next two hurricanes hit.

The weather's been nice since Irene passed through, and we're meeting lots of our neighbors at the library.

We on the eastern seaboard now can brag that we survived an earthquake and a hurricane within a week!