Hurricane Irene: is this lady NUTS?!

[sasvermont]

For all those folks who think the preparation scare was hype:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?f...3521629&type=1

We now have dueling chainsaws going in my neighborhood. I have only limbs and leaves, small enough to move by hand or lawn tractor. Many, many trees are down in the woods behind me. I can see them hanging, as I look from my bedroom window.

Some areas got it more than others. Flooding seems to be our enemy here in Vermont.

Was it the worst I've ever been through? Well, I have never felt my house sway or heard it creak before last night. It was gusting last night so I got little sleep.

I would prefer the hype so that people will be safe rather than sorry. Mother Nature is so unpredictable at best.

I have friends in PA who still have no power and they have brought in generators. Oh well. We will survive.

I prepared for the worst, hoped for the best and got something in between. Not bad.

Now I must go pick up all the yucky stuff in the yard.

I did get tired of hearing the TV channels' coverage of the hurricane, especially when they had some poor sucker standing at the pier or intersection, getting blown around....how silly.... so I turned off the TV and just tracked the hurricane on the NOAA website.

Some people's lives were turned upside down by the hurricane and I hope all the "hype" kept them scared enough to be safe. I was fortunate and now grateful that I prepared and didn't have to use all the preparation. I may not be so fortunate the next time.

[pomtzu]

Thought I would check in - we just got cable and internet restored around noon today. It went out sometime after midnight on Saturday, so yesterday was a day for movies and reading. We came through pretty much unscathed. We only lost power a couple of times, but it came right back on within a few minutes. There was water standing everywhere in this area - in the farm fields, people's yards, and roads made impassable, a lot of tree limbs down, but no structural damage anywhere that I saw, in my trip into town this morning. We had a lot of tree branches down, but that was the worst of it for us. We are protected somewhat by woods on 3 sides of us, so it's not like being a sitting duck, and out in the open. We got the worst of the storm between 8 and midnight Saturday, and it was pretty wild there for a while. There were tornadoes being tracked all around us - some as close as only 5 miles - but none touched down that I know of. There was one down in the beach area that did damage to 15 homes - one of them sustained major damage. Of course the ocean beaches sustained heavy erosion damage as they always do.
I for one, was not one to scoff at the warnings, just as I never do. And I have been thru a lot worse from blizzards, ice storms and Nor'Easters. I take them all seriously. If that forecast blizzard fizzles out and only dumps and inch or two, then that's fine with me, however, a forecast of an inch or two can turn into a monster blizzard and leave you even unable to get out of your own driveway for days and days, and be without power for even longer. Been that route before too.
I just hope that the nay-sayers and skeptics aren't sitting back and thinking "I was right - I knew it wasn't going to be so bad", because if this experience (and maybe some more in the future) makes you complacent, one day that complacency is going to bite you in the butt! I am glad that it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I was prepared for the worst anyway.
Glad to hear from the PT'ers that have checked in, and that you are all okay.

[Karen]

Yes, it took the furthest westward path of the ones they predicted, and I don't know if Vermonters even got the amount of pre-storm hysteria we did. I saw several reports saying it was possible that Wall Street would be under 7-8 feet of water ... and nothing about the potential for Vermont or Upstate NY suffering.

It is worrisome, because the next Hurricane that comes, people who evacuated this time "for no reason" as it turns out may be tempted to stay, and suffer because of it.

[momcat]

Hurricane Katrina hit 6 years ago today.

[Karen]

45 dead

12.4 Billion in damages, so far -
[snip]
All this from a Category 1 - just a rainstorm with high wind.

That was just what he said we would get when it finally got up here. Why the running tally, especially of the dead? Many of those deaths were due to senseless human error/stupidity and not simply the fault of the storm. I would not "blame" the Hurricane for the death of someone foolish enough to stand at the edge of a raging river in a hurricane and risk getting washed in and drowning - that was that person's decision, foolish though it may be. Likewise people who get washed off the sea wall, or off the beach when the beaches have all been closed, and signs posted to keep away. Or for the death of someone who decided to try canoeing in the rapidly rising floodwaters ... how is that a good idea? The rescue worker who died trying to rescue someone from a car when the driver foolishly thought they could just drive through the water, when it was pouring rain and in the middle of a hurricane, and we are all told as student drivers "don't ever try to cross running water on a roadway" ...

Yes, some of the deaths were tragic - the man who died when a tree fell on his house while he was inside is one example. But saying "45 dead" does not tell the whole story by any means.