The Calm Before...

Its looking more hopeful for us that Irene is going hit us with winds quite as bad as first feared. Earlier in the week it was looking possible that it may even have still been category 2 when it hit us. This storm is so wide that the effects are going to reach a lot further inland than usual. When you see a map with the Extreme severity band going half way across Pennsylvania then you know its a big storm.

Now it looks like it will be a cat 1/tropical storm when it reaches us. I think we are looking at a bit of wind damage and if the power goes out, a flooded basement too. We can hope for less, hope for it being pushed out to sea or breaking up and weakening but we'll just have to see. Where T.F. is Superman? Surely he can sort this out? Thats definitely one plus Superman has over Spiderman or Batman... you would see either of those guys stopping a hurtricane... hmmmm.... wtf am I talking about? :-)

They are pretty sure we are going to have a lot of power outages across our area that may take days or even weeks to restore. We have had so much rain this August, record rainfall in fact, that the 6-12 inches of rain that we are likely to get combined with the tropical storm/hurricane winds means that there will be a lot of downed trees. I just hope that not many are on houses. You suddenly become aware of the height of the trees around your house. The ones at the front of the front lawn may actually be tall enough to reach the house. The ones up the driveway definitely are.

If the power goes down then the sump pump in the basement will just sit there and let the water spout up around it and into the basement. The basement has flooded for the previous owner, for that reason, once during a tropical storm and once with a huge amount of snow being melted by a large amount of rain. So at this stage we are kind of resigned to the fact that it is likely with the biggest storm seen in the North East in a very long time.

I spent a chunk of today dismantling and deflating stuff on the deck and in the back yard. Stuff such as the kids plastic slide and the kids little house. Then making room in the shed and garage for all of that stuff plus tables, chairs, the grill and other loose stuff. We have a big permement gazebo on the deck as it gets very sunny there in the afternoon and night and the gazebo helps cool both the deck and the house as it blocks the sun from coming in through the patio doors. It is a large hollow iron framed one soemthing like 12ft by 10ft and heavy winds have moved it across the deck before... actually I have blipped one such occurence. We tomorrow I will not only have to take the cover off but I think I'd better dismantle it too, if a 50mph gust can lift it and slide it all the way across the deck then I'm guessing the winds tomorrow might shove it in through the patio doors. Not ideal :-)

I am a bit less concerned about the prospects of the windows blowing in and us fleeing to the basement which then floods on power loss. I wont say I am unconcerned about this possible scenario but I am less concerned...

It's so much more worrying all of these things nowadays. In the days before kids flooding, bursting windows and even severely wind damaged house are not nearly as frightening as the same situtation with a child not even 2 years old and a 4 year old with you.

Even though we are exposed on the mountain I presume we are not going be as badly hit as those at the shore, they have storm surge to cope with too.

I have a lot of other peoples blip journals I have been meaning to catch up on... perhaps if the power is out and we can't watch tv or anything then I'll do it then... oh... wait... ahh... Maybe next week.

I hope all my fellow East Coast blippers get through this pounding from mother nature with as little damage as possible. There is a chance that some of us may disappear from blip for days or even weeks if we are with out power... If one of them is me... then I'll see ya later :-)