Bye Bye Irene!!

Hatteras Island, NC

Just to let you know that I and mine weathered Irene in good shape with minimal problems.

As I said, I spent the time over at my brother, not so much that it was safer but because I would not be alone and he has that Oh-So-Cute Sammy. Plus, as we found out Friday night, my sister in law, who had major surgery on her back Wednesday was going to be released from the hospital in Philly, solid neck brace and all, Saturday morning. So someone needed to be available to find her cold beverages and bendy straws!

Most of South Jersey, along the coast, made out pretty well. A lot of trees down, and I mean BIG trees and a LOT of power outages. I heard a guy from the public works department in the town I live in say his crew had removed 17 trees from roads so far that day and that does not touch the ones on private property. Firewood for everyone!!


The Bro's house was without power from about 8 PM Saturday to 3 pm on Sunday, due to a neighbors tree that went down on the only section of power lines that are not buried in his neighborhood. And I must say the tornado warnings that I was getting on my cell phone from the Weather Service Saturday night were rather scary. The first was for the town on the barrier island just east of us and was heading west. That is not good. I hear it did touched down there, but seems to have gotten lost on the way to the Bro's, thank heavens.

My house, when I went over to check on it, was without power. A small tree down in my backyard and a tiny bit of water in my basement from the incredible amount of rain, but nothing to worry about. I got power back sometimes yesterday and it was back when I check here again around noon. Thank goodness. Ice, a stove to make tea, TV...Internet! And a lot of downed branches and leaves...and more leaves. I have seen some damage along the coast north of us in Ocean county, closer to NYC, but not aware of much here.

Now the real damage in NJ and NY state and up to Vermont is flooding, terrible, record flooding from all the rain and runoff into the streams and rivers. Irene was just so big, hundreds of miles across, and slow and so full of water. Down here, our soil is very sandy and drains pretty well. Up in the center of the state, the soil gets more rock and clay and you get hills and mountains and some big rivers and that can add up to huge runoff and rising water.

So let's keep all those people in our minds and prayers, those that lost their lives and those that lost their homes and possessions and all that suffer so much disruption. Bye bye Irene!