Waiting out the hurricane
It's Sunday, and Irene has passed us. Our condo has power, gas, cable TV and internet, and is as dry and structurally secure as it usually is. A lot of people in NJ aren't so lucky. It's time like this that I am very glad that my wife was extremely diligent in choosing a condo in a spot fairly secure against natural disasters.
We spent Saturday listening to wind and rain outside, and watching the dire proclamations of the weather channel on TV, nervously watching the size of the puddles outside and checking around the windows and doors for water seeping in. Power flickered a few times, then at 3AM went out and stayed out. Laurie's ancient battery-powered GE radio kept us informed on the latest storm news.
I managed to get some sleep, but without power for my CPAP machine it wasn't terribly restful.
Sunday morning the rain stopped. The power came back on at about noon, and the cable TV and Internet a few hours after that. Laurie and I went for a walk around the neighborhood, looking at the storm damage. The sudden increase in traffic on our usually quiet side street told us that Easton avenue was closed for flooding again. Several people stopped and asked us how to get to route 287, something we weren't quite sure of since we didn't know just which side streets were flooded or blocked by fallen trees and power lines yet.
Some nice people down on Easton Avenue let us take pictures of the roaring river that used to be their back yard. We taked with a few other people around the neighborhood, and learned to distinguish between generators and sump pumps by sound.
I'm still not sure if I'll be able to go to work tomorrow. I know I'll be able to get to the office, but a lot of the other employees live further away, on the other side of flooded roads, and they might not bother unlocking the building.
We're lucky, safe and dry and with power. A lot of people aren't. One of my oldest friends from high school is looking at declaring bankruptcy and walking away from the house that he and his wife and child live in, in one of the really bad flood zones. We don't know just how bad it is yet, but if the flood reaches the same level it did with Hurricane Floyd, the entire first floor of their single-floor house is underwater.
We spent Saturday listening to wind and rain outside, and watching the dire proclamations of the weather channel on TV, nervously watching the size of the puddles outside and checking around the windows and doors for water seeping in. Power flickered a few times, then at 3AM went out and stayed out. Laurie's ancient battery-powered GE radio kept us informed on the latest storm news.
I managed to get some sleep, but without power for my CPAP machine it wasn't terribly restful.
Sunday morning the rain stopped. The power came back on at about noon, and the cable TV and Internet a few hours after that. Laurie and I went for a walk around the neighborhood, looking at the storm damage. The sudden increase in traffic on our usually quiet side street told us that Easton avenue was closed for flooding again. Several people stopped and asked us how to get to route 287, something we weren't quite sure of since we didn't know just which side streets were flooded or blocked by fallen trees and power lines yet.
Some nice people down on Easton Avenue let us take pictures of the roaring river that used to be their back yard. We taked with a few other people around the neighborhood, and learned to distinguish between generators and sump pumps by sound.
I'm still not sure if I'll be able to go to work tomorrow. I know I'll be able to get to the office, but a lot of the other employees live further away, on the other side of flooded roads, and they might not bother unlocking the building.
We're lucky, safe and dry and with power. A lot of people aren't. One of my oldest friends from high school is looking at declaring bankruptcy and walking away from the house that he and his wife and child live in, in one of the really bad flood zones. We don't know just how bad it is yet, but if the flood reaches the same level it did with Hurricane Floyd, the entire first floor of their single-floor house is underwater.