Hurrican Irene

[JamesSavik]

 

Unless you live on Mars, you have probably heard that the eastern coast of the United States is in for some serious trouble.

 

Irene is going to make a grazing pass over the East coast at various strengths of cat 4, 3 and 2.

 

This is serious even for localities that are experienced with hurricanes and are well prepared. This storm is going up the coast far enough to cause trouble in Maryland, New York and points beyond.

 

The thing that bugs me about this storm is that it reminds me a lot of Katrina. It's a big storm. It's several hundred miles across. It's powerful and will be on the cusp of cat 3 and 4 as far north as the Carolinas. Worst- it's a relatively slow moving storm so its going to linger and take a while to pass through any given area. This means that the potential for inland flooding and wind damage is higher. I don't think storm surge is going to be so bad with this one as it is mostly a glancing blow and not a direct hit.

 

Being an old hand at hurricanes, all the pieces are in place for a very bad storm that causes widespread destruction. If you are in the path of this storm, make preparations to be somewhere else.

[W_L]

I'm in the path, but only slightly, probably at tropical storm strength, when it hits Massachusetts.

 

People up here are less worried about the storm, because they seem to think it is another hurricane Gloria; all talk and not much thunder. Now if it maintains Cat 3-4 up to New York, people will start to panic and hide in their homes with shotguns.

[intune]

I'm a little worried, I live on the water in CT and it looks like it might hit here >.< . Oh well, I mean who knows now if they're right.

[rustle]

Please do not take this lightly. Even a tropical storm can cause incredible damage. While living in Houston, I weathered several hurricanes. The damage brought about by Tropical Storm Allison was far worse, because it hovered over the same area for several days, raining heavily.

 

If you can, please evacuate immediately. If you can't evacuate right away, hunker down. Don't get caught in traffic on the road.

 

Be prudent, and be safe. Good luck to you all.

[K.C.]

I'm very worried. I'm more worried about the wind more than anything. We have 7 acres of very heavy woods and several huge old trees near the house. We have trees fall all the time on a bright blue sunny day. Trimming out the dead ones every years helps a little but with winds that hight and saturated grounds any one is a potential house pancake maker!

[TalonRider]

I about 35 miles outside of Philly so I'm probably at the border between hurricane and tropical force winds. I think our biggest danger will be from the winds as August has been the wettest in history. So we'll probably see lots of trees go down since the ground is so saturated.

[Andrew Q Gordon]

Jan,

 

What you describe is what happened when Isabella came through in Aug/Sept 2005. The ground was super soaked and trees toppled. That in turned played havoc with the power lines. Frankly that is what I am most worried about - seems whenever we get some wind, we lose power. Fortunately, we live at the top of a hill so I am not too concerned about flooding. Depending on what I see, the path looks like it will be well east of DC, Baltimore and to a lesser extent Philly.

 

As for you KC, you're even further west then I am so I suspect you'll be fine - wet but fine. That's my hope at least. Now watch it moves west and my house ends up in Kansas - or Oz - same difference.

[Wulfenite]

I'm directly in the path in CT. =\

[TetRefine]

Since Irene is scheduled to slam New England right when I was planning to leave for college, I'll be leaving a day early so we don't get stuck driving down I-95 in it.

[Wulfenite]

My first day of the semester is monday. They are saying widespread damage is likely, with power/trees down. I'm wondering if they will have classes.

[TalonRider]

It looks like I won't be able to sit the storm out at home. The Administrator wants all Department Heads in Saturday afternoon. The facility sits high ground so rain won't be much of an issue. But we are prone to lightening strikes and the electric goes out often.

 

With the two fairly new generators, power shouldn't be to much of a problem.

[Lixiaolang78]

While I might not know what it feels like to leave in the path of a hurricane (hopefully we don't have ones in Europe), I hope everyone is safe and everything will be allright for all of you!

[Abersloth]

I wish all you east-coast GAers the best of luck as you face down this catastrophic zombie apocalypse hurricane. We don't have storms like that over here, but I've got family all over the Gulf coast, and they're telling me that Irene looks like a mixture of all the things a storm needs to be destructive. Good luck, ladies and gentlemen. May the Lords of Kobol be with you.

[Krista]

They were interviewing people on television that were going to ride it out.. lol. The thing I don't get about Hurricanes is that they come into the forecast with a fair bit of warning - enough so that mandatory evacuations can run relatively smoothly. The Damage they're talking about with Irene - they predict will be in the billions, probably top 10 most costing storms to make partial/complete landfall. It also impacts a lot of people, so I would want people to use good judgment and get out of the way of this thing... I would hate to ride it out, get injured or lose my provisions, and not have help coming because I was told to get out... So people should try to make it out of the way of this thing... AND TRY TO TAKE YOUR PETS!

[W_L]

Called it, Tropical Storm Irene was more scary in its roar than its actual hit on Boston, but all the mass transit services got shut down and it is causing a massive headache for our commuters.

 

We were east of the storm center based on path and forecasts

 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/08/28/mbta_suspends_service_on_sunday/

 

http://www.boston.com/Boston/metrodesk/2011/08/frustrated-commuters-wait-for-last-ride-the-mbta-before-shutdown/UoLcAZWzdUe1a3uI3bSjLO/index.html

 

As a city that can survive 40-50 mile an hour of blowing snow, we shut down our mass transit services for a scant 60 mile an hour gust with an occasional downpour. However, to put things in perspective, Some southern states shuts down after seeing a little snow for same reasons; people get scared of unusual weather.

[JamesSavik]

Irene did not strengthen as expected. It stayed around a cat 1 until it dropped to tropical storm strength.