Get out of the way...or Me, Myself, and IRENE!

[xsroadrunner]

I'm thinking of TC and family and any others XSives who are anywhere near the ocean...no doubt you all have to evacuate anyways...just concerned as Irene is gonna cause alot of flooding...

[TopCatGr58]

Hey folks,

I can appreciate the thoughts...they are playing it up pretty good on the National News! I live in Portsmouth, right in the middle of the Tidewater area of Virginia...just 20 or so miles west of Virginia Beach. There's an estuary of the James River in my back yard. It's a good 10 feet down from my house base to the water line back there some 100 or more feet away. I don't live in a FLOOD ZONE, it came up to our back yard during Isabel, but that was it. The problem was with a slow travelling storm...the extreme rainfall weakening the ground, and THEN the constant winds...changing direction from east, to north, to west as it passes...stressing the very tall trees and their shallow roots causing them to fall over...often onto homes!

The power lines are mostly still above ground, the power company has tried to trim trees away from them as best they could, but that's where we have the most probability of power losses. We lost power for 5 days with Isabel, and cable internet access for 10! SO....if that happens, then folks looking to register as new members will just have to wait until I can get back to things!

We bought a portable generator a few years ago for this type of situation, tested it just a few weeks ago, working fine! Bathtubs are full for possible flushing water IF the water stations go down! I'll post/reply again once it passes and I'm still able to get ONLINE. If I can't, I'll call a few Xsives I have phone numbers for...IF I can get a call out...cell towers can also go down!

I lived in Florida for 15 years, so I'm not unfamiliar with these fun Storms!
Hope the other folks below and above will also be SAFE and DRY!

T.C.

[latexeses]

TC,
Get the bike to higher ground!

Good luck to everyone back there that is close to the coast. Hope nobody gets thrashed.

Rodger

[3Phase]

T.C., I know you'll be able to weather the storm but like Rodger says, keep poor Godzilla high and dry, man!

Uh, if you have a river 100 feet from your back yard why are you storing water in bathtubs? When the power goes out does the river shut off too?

[Cobia]

To all in the path...
Having had Irene barely 200 miles east of us at a Cat 3 almost Cat 4 strength sure made for a big time case of the puckers. Cat 4 would have destroyed our neighborhoods. We survived Wilma in 2005, a Cat 3 and truth be told the western eye wall gave me great cause for concern the way our house shuddered. We spent the first part, the eastern part of it, on the second floor looking out a slit I'd left in the plywood covering the sliding glass door. During the passing of the eye I went out ot check on my newly deilvered $15k boat, which had just been delivered and I wasn't able to insure because we were already in the cone, to find all was OK. Then the western side of it started to come though. We ran inside and because of the intensity decided to look at it from the first floor of the house..... whiteout conditions. Couldn't see 25' out from the window.
By the way it looks north of NC you'll only get Cat 1 conditions, water surge will be your biggest concern. TC I hope your house is elevated enough so flooding not affect you. And yes, that generator will come in very handy.
I'm lucky to be on the same power grid as the fire station accross the street from the entrance to our development. We were without power only for 26 hrs after Wilma when the average outage for everybody else was about a week.
Good luck to all of you out there in the path of Irene.

[Toolmaker Tim]

Storms

Hey TC, keep your head down and your nose out of the water. I don't think the weather is any worse than it has always been, but it never hurts to be ready. I have been wanting to get one of those water filters they make now and a generator. We keep a lot of dry goods on hand in case something like Joplin happens. We had the Palm Sunday tornados hit us hard in 1966, and it was years before the signs of it's aftermath went away. If you have clean water and power you are ahead of the curve. Everybody on the East Coast be careful and good luck.

[foreda]

Hurricane

Being from Louisiana, I have been thru many hurricanes..I know what ya'll are going thru!! Stay safe!! I hope the only hurricane I go thru this year will be at Pat O'Brien's next month when I make my annual trek to New Orleans!!

[TopCatGr58]

Well as Cobia said,

Looks like it's grinding down while plowing thru NC, only expecting Cat1 at most, but it's moving slowly, so it can weaken alot while it's center is over land, and the track appears to be to continue the eye either directly over us or even more westward.

I didn't mention it earlier and it's not been in the national news, but we've had a horrible peat fire(burning underground) in the dried up dismal swamp just north of the NC border for the past several weeks, some 6100 acres, only 21% contained, so they were talking/needing several inches of rain to FLOOD the bog and put out the fire. I think this will do it!

As long as I have power/net access, I'll keep posting updates, just doing nothing but sitting around waiting and watching it come and blow by! Might even get some photos if something interesting shows up!

T.C.

[xsroadrunner]

Glad you're ok TC...we have frequent power outages but it keeps coming right back on...we had one tree on my corner fall into the street blocking out exit but a couple nabes helped us clear the road...we're watching the trees that are way too close to the house and way too big. If one of them falls on the house we're done

[DGXSER]

Sounds good TC. Like that it is weakening, hope it does not spawn to many tornadoes either. Keep Safe you Noreasterners!

[TopCatGr58]

Just an update.

Hey folks,

Well, we lost power/net/phone access for a couple of days, but got it back late last night, too late to take time to post, etc.! It didn't hit me very badly, and surprisingly it didn't completely put out the Peat Fire in the Dismal Swamp either, but it helped a lot, they only have some 30 hot spots now to take care of.

I saw the national news tonight about Vermont and the more northern/eastern states, geez they got hit worse with all of that flooding and washing out roads and such!

Anyways, just wanted to post that I'm back "on duty"! Wishing the best for the other nor'easteners!!

T.C.

[Cobia]

Hey TC,

I'm very glad you and yours made it through OK, being so close to the water and all. Could have had it much worse such as those in NJ, VT, and such.
Amazing that Irene made a flip flop and the typically wet eastern front moved to the west and the harsh winds moved to the east.... go figure.
Anyway, happy to hear you're good to go.