Irene cometh

The last time I was anywhere near a major hurricane was in 1985, living in Westchester County when Gloria hit New York. Clearly, I am not an expert.

My area, 150mi inland, won't get the worst of Irene this weekend, but she's due to hit the mid- and north-Atlantic coast pretty hard, hard enough that New York's Mayor Bloomberg has called for more drastic storm preparations—shutting down the entire subway system on Saturday night, for example— than I can remember ever hearing of.

So who's bracing for the storm? Who's ready? Who's nervous? And who thinks she won't amount to much of anything at all?

 

Hi Damnitall
I'm in England, and the Great Storm of 1987 is the worst I've lived through. It is not in the league of y'all's hurricanes, but I have close friends who were close to or caught in them. Regarding this one, I wish you the very best..

 

My family was vacationing in Florida when Hurricane Allison hit; which, if I remember correctly, was pretty minor. All we did was drive farther inland (much to my disappointment. I was 14 at the time and desperately wanted to go to a Hurricane Party.)

Anyway, that's it as far as Hurricane Experience goes for me. I don't REALLY think we personally have a lot to worry about--we're pretty far inland. Still, I've taken stock of dry food, planned on precooking a few things like rice and pasta, checked the dog food level, stuff like that. Just got paid today, which means I'll be stocking up on batteries and bottled water-- people don't seem all that concerned here, so I'm not too worried about shelves being ransacked.

I blame this on most of my guy friends being Boy Scouts growing up. Always Be Prepared, yo. I'd rather have too much stuff and nothing happen than vice versa.

Edit: forgot to add, we're near Charlotte. If we were still living in Clinton (*shudder*), we'd probably be evacuating.

 

I have a friend on a larger boat docked in NC and he's going to try to ride it out on the boat.

yikes

 

I moved to NC a month before Hurricane Floyd hit in 1999. It sucked, to say the least. Thankfully, we decided to ride it out at home instead of driving inland - all the people we knew who did that ended up getting trapped because the flooding was worse inland than it was where we were (close to the coast). One of my mom's coworkers wasn't able to come home for two weeks because the roads were covered with water.

I have a lot of family and friends in NC and VA. I'm very concerned for my mother, who lives in NC, because she lives 20 miles from the coast and lives in a trailer. She rode out 3 biggish storms (Fran, Bertha, and Floyd) and several smaller ones at her old house, but she hasn't had to deal with one in her trailer.

I hope everyone here that's in the path stays safe.

 

Scary stuff by the sounds of it. I know this may sound deranged, but I've always wanted to experience a tropical storm or mild hurricane. I love the summer storms we can get here (the one on wednesday I was outside for the entire time in my garage just admiring the fury of nature) but I know that was nothing compared to what the tropical storms and hurricanes are like.

I have no desire to see anyone get hurt, or lose their homes but I'd still love to see and experience what it would be like as sick as that sounds.

 

Come on, Irene...

 

Truth be told, I feel the same way about experiencing tornadoes (never seen one), earthquakes, and tsunamis.

Score one for morbid fascination.

 

I grew up in Florida and am well accustomed to hurricanes. This one is huge and should produce a lot of rain and wind where I'm at, but it's going to be brutal on the outer banks. Hope everyone there is ready.

 

I live in Massachusetts, I've experienced my fair share of hurricanes, tropical storms, Nor' Easters, blizzards, etc. We aren't going to be hit as hard as the Carolina's, but, it should still produce some high winds and lots of rain. I'm hoping not to have another flooded basement like last year during the floods.

 

yay. rain already. She's still 230+ miles out.

 

irene looks like a giant exclamation point that's traveling up the east coast. so we had to cancel the music festival that we've been working 6 months to organize. they say there's to be an 11.5 tide with a 4 foot surge, so all the boats in town have been ordered out of the water because if there really is a 15 foot tide, the water could be over the top of the pylons that hold the decks in place. i have been wondering about watching the houseboat that's on jacks at the back of my driveway floating around the marsh in a hurricane, but that's perhaps my inner anarchist talking.

 

That sucks that you have to cancel. Are you able to postpone or is all the work for naught?

 

still trying to figure that out. we could do it next weekend, but the line-up is a problem at this point--lots of the bands can't do the gig. we'll see how it plays out. but thanks.

 

good luck! would insurance cover any of your outlays (assuming you had insurance?)

 

o there's lots of insurance. we were expecting about 2000 people. actually, if we can't pull off next weekend--and it doesn't look great because it's a holiday weekend here---and we cancel, we aren't out much apart from a massive amount of time.

 

So sorry to hear that, roach, hope something works out for you all.

 

All you East Coasters get out of the way and let your fully insured stuff get blown away. I need it about now.

 

Ballsy fellow? Unlike the U.S. Navy who ordered 38 ships and subs out of the Norfolk Navy Yard