Irene

[Ebenezr]

Just a little advice from one who has been through several hurricanes now. If your in the storms path don't laugh it off. It promises to be bad. It's not the storm itself. Storms can be exciting. It is the heck to pay for days afterward. No gas. No power etc. Sticks to pick up for months. SO GET READY. It's sterno and macaroni and cheese for a long time!

[vt_maverick]

Soooo glad we moved to the mountains BEFORE hurricane season.

Btw, have you guys ever been to this site? Very cool, and they have apps for iPad and maybe other devices as well:

StormPulse

[Cobrajet]

Glad I got a new blade sharpener for my chipper. I may need it after this weekend. They're now predicting a more westerly path. I may get the fringe over here, but not the brunt of the storm. Hopefully it will stay east and we'll only get much needed rain.

[fuzzy]

And most importantly , for goodness sakes, save your VXes! I'm getting out of Norfolk ASAP tomorrow (after a concert tonight... gotta have priorities). I'll be the yellow blur heading up 17...

[Ldub]

Just a little advice from one who has been through several hurricanes now. If your in the storms path don't laugh it off. It promises to be bad. It's not the storm itself. Storms can be exciting. It is the heck to pay for days afterward. No gas. No power etc. Sticks to pick up for months. SO GET READY. It's sterno and macaroni and cheese for a long time!

Personally, I like the taste of sterno...

Add SPAM to your list of survival foods, & you've got a horizontal rain picnic...

I just bought a couple tins of SPAM & Cheese (yes, DOUBLE the goodness in one tin) today, & it doesn't expire till 2014...

That's good eat'n right there...

[RickOKC]

Yeah, watch out for Mama Nature - she's a mean, evil, beeyotch. Not that it's life-threatening, but my poor ol' beloved '08 Mustang is now waiting for her turn in line to get dozens of hail dents fixed. My poor baby!

[rsteinmetz70112]

Fill up with gas, get some bottled water and park you vehicles inside.

Even if you don't get any damage the little bits of stuff flying around can ruin the paint job.

[WormGod]

How did folks make out?

Midday Sat, we took one of the boys to his football game, which was insane with crazy wind and horizontal rain, but c'mon, kids love that (not so much adults)! Completely soaked, it made for a lovely traffic ridden, hour ride home BLAH! And sadly, the little tike lost his game by 7.

On the way home, stocked up on booze, munchies, and more booze and munchies. Made a giant pail of lasagna to last a couple days and just "couched" it for the rest of the duration. Watched some tube (Directv only went out for 1/2 the whole time, amazingly), played some videogames, and generally just enjoyed watching the storm out the windows.

No damage and no local flooding, and think we really lucked out on this one. We have had much worse summer thunderstorms. Irene spared many of us west of Annapolis/Baltimore.

To anyone who is "let down" that Irene wasn't as tough as they were led to be and consider that to have been a weak storm.... tell that to the people closer to the eastern shore who had absurd flooding, damaged homes, and even lost lives. Tired of hearing these selfish asses on the news.

[tom4bren]

Yah, I'm perfectly content with just 35mph sustained winds & a boatload of rain.

No damage at home. Just a lot of leaves & twigs on the ground.

A tree in front of the building at work went down and busted out a few windows though.

[mdwyer]

To anyone who is "let down" that Irene wasn't as tough as they were led to be and consider that to have been a weak storm.... tell that to the people closer to the eastern shore who had absurd flooding, damaged homes, and even lost lives. Tired of hearing these selfish asses on the news.

That drives me crazy. Now everyone is questioning if we overreacted. I think we reacted just about right. I liked how my friend put it:

Good preparation, management and government has the unfortunate feature of appearing invisible when it works as intended. Thanks to the volunteers, the emergency planners, medical staff and others who are still prepared to rescue our hurricane-party-drunk asses when it doesn't have a happy ending like this one.

[VX KAT]

To anyone who is "let down" that Irene wasn't as tough as they were led to be and consider that to have been a weak storm.... tell that to the people closer to the eastern shore who had absurd flooding, damaged homes, and even lost lives. Tired of hearing these selfish asses on the news.

That drives me crazy. Now everyone is questioning if we overreacted. I think we reacted just about right.

GAWD I agree with you two, the talking heads are already talking about "over-reaction"...and that gossip/trash/tabloid journalist "Piers Morgan" on CNN already has tonight's show on it!....gee that's helpful, get people second guessing their decisions to listen to evacuation orders and other safety info....

Remember when "news" used to have some integrity and substance?

Hope everybody is ok, with minimal damage......and Tom I hope all the ladies bought your Irene excuse!

[deermagnet]

This was the worst storm ever seen in many places in the northeast. There was horrific flooding over in the Catskills. Many of the highest water levels ever recorded were exceeded by several feet yesterday. All roads in Delaware County, NY are now closed. Many small villages saw their main street areas completely destroyed. Large areas will be lucky to have power back by this weekend.

Things are even worse in southern Vermont and elsewhere. It will be years before some of these towns look the same or maybe never.

Mark

[VX KAT]

This was the worst storm ever seen in many places in the northeast. There was horrific flooding over in the Catskills. Many of the highest water levels ever recorded were exceeded by several feet yesterday. All roads in Delaware County, NY are now closed. Many small villages saw their main street areas completely destroyed. Large areas will be lucky to have power back by this weekend.

Things are even worse in southern Vermont and elsewhere. It will be years before some of these towns look the same or maybe never.

Mark

Exactly what makes me so mad about the news talking, or even MENTIONING the word over reaction!

Seen a lot of the coverage of Vermont today, just a disaster, and that's played out all over the NE like you said Mark.

[Triathlete]

Remember when "news" used to have some integrity and substance?

Ummm, nope!
But it is worse now than before.

[Ldub]

Remember when "news" used to have some integrity and substance?

Even IF there was the same amount of actual "integrity" in the olden days, as there is now...

At least Walt Cronkite, Moreorless Safer, Huntley & Brinkley & the rest, APPEARED to be pretty trustworthy Joes...

(I believe that much of Yoda's character was based on Cronkite)

Not the transparent bunch of ratings whores we have now...