Escape from Hurricane Irene

[Bowmans]

I agree with you Gene. There is alot of hype on the news. We were at our AS on Tuesday when the Earthquake hit and were abou 150 miles from Mineral where the center was. The AS was the place to be for that. It rocked a little. I was excited we had witnessed the earthquake and ran outside to feel the slow oscillation of the ground for about 10 minutes after the initial quake. That was something else.

We had to leave our AS near the coast of a tidal river in VA, just off of the Chesapeake on Friday. We were far enough inland that we weren't worried about flooding. We batton down the hatches. The only worry was a tree next to the site but what will happen, will happen. We will be goin back next week to check on it.

When we got home Friday, our house (about 40 miles from the earthquake center) was fine. No cracks, not even a fallen picture. We rode out the hurricane there which was impressive with the winds. We live in a rural area so many trees. We lost a weeping willow we planted 10 years ago and had to clean some debris up but all was well. We played musical cars for a while that afternoon to avoid limbs and our power went off and on but never for more than 30 seconds so we fared well.

I hope everyone else and their pets on the east coast are well. And second, that your Airstreams are all fine!

[pmclemore]

The oak didn't fall. We're delighted. Now we're facing days without power and it's Virginia in August. And lots of trees down that need cutting up and hauling. The genny has done a good job of keeping the trailer refrig, chest freezer and house refrig cold. We even took in a neighbors carefully put-away corn, tomatoes, stock.

So glad it was a cat one. Jeez - a cat 2 or more, I don't even want to consider, and I live inland. 9 inches of rain (but we live in a sandy-soil area, so no probs absorbing that. I'll be that our friends in Texans would have been dancing naked in the streets if they had this.

The hype on the news serves a purpose: at least it encourages thinking people to stay home rather than tool around in their big-wheeled trucks, making waves that flood houses that were lucky enough to stay dry before they came through. If it were me, I'd have a supply of bricks to send their way. I'll pay for the damage I caused, you pay for the damage you caused.

Big weather is dangerous. I don't care how experienced you are. It's stupid to disregard how powerful it is in comparison to how smart you think you are.

It's hot and muggy. And no power expected for days. Have a nice time.

Pat

[halimer]

This has been a busy month for us and our AS. Major hail storm(AS injured) on 1 August,
5.8 earthquake on Wednesday, and Irene on this weekend. Lucky no damage.
We couldn't leave Long Island due to my recent shoulder surgery. Hope the everyone who was in Hurricane Irene path is safe and secure.

Mark

[LI Pets]

yes, it has been an interesting past few days on Long Island, from earthquakes to hurricane Irene.

I pulled the trailer off my heavily wooded property to an open field across the street, parked into the forecast SSE wind of 75mph, left the truck hooked up dropped the stabilizers.

All went well, the wind kept going for about 16 hours.

two small dead trees went down, didn't lose power, others west of us were not as lucky. 450,000 without power, numerous trees down.

[urnmor]

Just wondering what is the consensus regarding where to park AS in a hurricane. in an open area where the wind might blow it over or in a heavily wooded area where broken limps might damage it

[reinergirl]

Not sure the people in Vermont would believe that all the hype was overdone. And that's the point, some have gotten lucky with this storm but plenty of people did not.
Historic bridge washes away

Bartonsville Bridge In Vermont Washed Away By Tropical Storm Irene (VIDEO)


The Associated Press: Irene brings worst flooding in century to Vermont

[pmclemore]

My vote is away from falling trees and limbs. If the wind is strong enough to blow it over, I will have many worse things to deal with than the trailer.

Pat

[JFScheck]

Away from trees, into the wind, stabilizers down, attached to tow vehicle, anchors deployed.

[Skater]

We're still without power at our house. Airstream survived the storm just fine right next to our house, and in fact we have the fridge going in it keeping most of the stuff in our house fridge cold. Working great.

Next time the power is out for an extended time, we'll just move into the camper. We didn't do it this time because the batteries are bad, so maintaining a charge even overnight is difficult. Right now half of the stuff I need to make my lunch for work is in the house and the other half is in the camper...kind of a pain. Still, somehow, we got on the road for work about 10 minutes early today... maybe we're just eager to go to work!

[Lily&Me]

We rode out the storm near Greenville, VA, had heavy rain there but no downed trees or noticeable wind damage. We were on the outer periphery of the storm and are glad we moved as far inland as we did.

Driving through Virginia and into NC since Sunday, there are lots of folks without power and many, many, many huge trees downed at their roots. Onto houses, power lines, cars, etc. This was a fear due to the heavy rains out here recently, and a couple of deaths were caused by these falling trees. You would not want to be under one of these babies when they came down.

Highway 12 through the Outer Banks has been obliterated in places, as well, and much predictable damage out there. One of the campgrounds is basically gone, with RV's and trailers strewn about as if they were matchsticks.

As they say, it all depends on whose ox is being gored.

Maggie

[Gringo]

We can hardly believe the sheer amount of media and political hype attached to these things now. The 'journalists' screaming you're all gonna die. The govenors ordering people to leave their property, like it was the governments right to tell people what risks they can take , like they were kindergarten kids needing instructions to mix Koolaid or something.

And the political figures all hoping for a crisis to manage for the career points.

Its pretty disgusting to watch from a distance. From here, where the storm went basically over the top of us, it sure looks like the greatest nation in the history of the world has been turned into a bunch of crooked politicians and hysterical media running around screaming with their skirts over their heads.

Get a grip. It's just another friggen bad STORM. That's all. Not the apocaylpse. Not the end of the planet. There have been storms before. There will be storms again. Do we REALLY need a bunch of talking heads screaming at us about how bad it's going to be? Have we really turned into a nation of namby pamby bimbos who don't know how to handle themselves in a friggen wind storm anymore?

This is not the same stock that settled North America.

[Melody Ranch]

Gringo is right on....100%

[Foiled Again]

RANT: My personal thing about taking risks - States that allow motorcycle riders to go without helmets. Personal freedom? Personal choice? WHO else's business is it anyway? There are 1000 reasons that Social Security is bankrupt - only one of those is that thousands of severely brain injured people are being kept alive in various degrees of coma or vegetative states after they've been in motorcycle accidents without helmets. Ditto for not wearing seat belts. Now granted, in 100 mph crashes, helmets and seat belts... not a guaranteed walk away... but an unprotected head hitting the pavement in a 20 mph accident is very likely to cause permanent & serious brain damage. WE ARE ALL PAYING FOR IT. Private insurance companies all have lifetime benefit maximums. With Medicare & SS... The medical profession will keep your relatives alive in a coma on a ventilator as long as the payments are coming in. DO A LIVING WILL!!!!!! Do not put it in your safety deposit box. Give several original notarized copies to relatives, friends or your lawyer.

Cheap flood insurance seems to be going away - but it used to be that when you went to your beach house in the summer it was a SHACK. You put your old shabby furniture in the beach house when you bought new... and if a storm took it away, it wasn't a 2 million dollar 3 story palace.

of course I'm ranting about the "less is more" benefits - and I own an Airstream.... Ironic... true.
--------------------------------------------
Status report

Our power is back on, I had that margarita and a thorough shower and a good night's sleep. Normal is good.

Next time.... There are hundreds of vacant buildings in this town. I know commercial landlords by the dozen. How hard would it be for me to rent a ROBUST covered storage space for a week - not! Why didn't I think of it this time... d'oh. Well I'm going to be talking to someone about JUST that today. We live, hopefully we LEARN.

When I went to pick up the Airstream the first 85 miles I did not see a single light on that wasn't due to a generator. Whole small towns like Emporia, Ivor, Waverly were DARK. Many trees were down by the roadside. You could see that maintenance crews had cut them off, and moved them to the side of the road, but would have to clear them off later. Even much of Petersburg (south of Richmond) was without power. On the trip back down, the crews were just starting to get the traffic lights and main grids back on. The crews are here from as far away as Ohio.

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Stuff is STUFF and it isn't all that important until you lose everything! I'm not a super-organized planner, but my cousin Pam Conrad is. She lived near Los Angeles for years and had an earthquake/fire/mudslide evacuation "bookcase" near the front door. It was made out of 10 heavy duty milk cases that could easily be picked up and chucked into the station wagon if they had to evacuate in a hurry. She updated it twice a year. Contents:

• photo albums of precious memories & grandpa's bronze star, etc.
• legal papers, including all insurance documents, deeds, appraisals of various collections, health records for people and dogs
• non-perishable foods & a very small one burner Coleman cookstove
• toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, feminine products, (space for all Rx & OTC meds, which were all kept in the kitchen cabinet in one tupperware box, easily available to grab and run.)
• one change of clothing for each family member & 2 changes of underwear.
• Space for ONE toy for each child.
• blankets & flashlights
• four empty plastic gallon bottles which would be filled with water when evac. was likely.

I'm sure I've left off a few things - but Pam put a lot of thought into organizing and being ready. She also had a loud horn that signaled the kids to come home for emergencies only - she made the entire family do a practice run twice a year. (Everyone got sundaes IF they were out of the house and in the car in 10 minutes or less.)

Disaster planning is always best done AFTER a disaster, not before.

I feel very sorry for those folks in Vermont and further north along the Atlantic Seaboard. We got clobbered but very few lives were lost - because of the advance warnings. I agree the newscasters are all about drama, but these storms used to cost hundreds or even thousands of lives before storm paths could be traced and warnings issued.

Let's all just pray for a very gentle wet storm to hit Texas!

Paula

[pmclemore]

I think it takes stern warnings to get tourists out of places like the Outer Banks. The road will certainly be cut, trapping people in rental houses without water, electricity or a way to keep food. Who's going to take care of them? It's not enough to think that they can take care of themselves - who has the experience to handle it. Sure, it's not likely they'll die, so what's the worry? Too many people needing scant resources, when replenishment will be slow in coming. Overblown? Easy to say with 20-20 hindsight.

We're still without power and our hopes are pinned on Dominion's promise to have most folks up by Friday. Or Saturday. We have an advantage in that the trailer is primed and ready. I am using our Yamaha 2400is (propane) to keep the house and trailer refrig/freezers cold. I am also enjoying my Rennai water heater in the house; it uses very little ac so we can have hot showers (we have a village water system that relies on a farmer's tractor to spin our generator; we arranged that after Isabel kicked our butt in 2003). Not that we don't have hot water in the trailer, but there's nothing like having lots of hot water and no worries about tank space.

Don't be so smug about hurricane warnings; you never know how they're going to turn out.

[pmclemore]

BTW, I'm getting about 7 hours per 20lb tank. Not the low-priced way to do this.

Pat

[Gene]

It'll be interesting to see how long it takes to get power back. I am always surprised when it takes weeks since I don't remember such long waits years ago. I guess utilities have cut their workforce so much they can't keep up like they used to and state utility commissions are letting them get away with it.

Glad to hear things are getting back to normal, however slowly.

Yeh, people do dumb things, and who hasn't? Hard to decide who gets help and who doesn't.

And now that NYC survived, there's not much attention to anywhere else. Some reports from Vt., but inland from there south have had devastating floods too.

Gene

[noreen&sal]

Originally Posted by pmclemore

I think it takes stern warnings to get tourists out of places like the Outer Banks. The road will certainly be cut, trapping people in rental houses without water, electricity or a way to keep food. Who's going to take care of them? It's not enough to think that they can take care of themselves - who has the experience to handle it. Sure, it's not likely they'll die, so what's the worry? Too many people needing scant resources, when replenishment will be slow in coming. Overblown? Easy to say with 20-20 hindsight.

We're still without power and our hopes are pinned on Dominion's promise to have most folks up by Friday. Or Saturday. We have an advantage in that the trailer is primed and ready. I am using our Yamaha 2400is (propane) to keep the house and trailer refrig/freezers cold. I am also enjoying my Rennai water heater in the house; it uses very little ac so we can have hot showers (we have a village water system that relies on a farmer's tractor to spin our generator; we arranged that after Isabel kicked our butt in 2003). Not that we don't have hot water in the trailer, but there's nothing like having lots of hot water and no worries about tank space.

Don't be so smug about hurricane warnings; you never know how they're going to turn out.

Darwins Law. Sal.

[pmclemore]

Yeah, sure, Darwin's Law is effective. Just not pleasant to watch, i.e. Katrina. I'm glad there are folks out there to provide a second chance after a stupid decision.

Pat

[Foiled Again]

A local storage facility.... drove past it on the way out. Thought... wow, I wonder if I could simply rent a space for a week... this place is 2/3 empty. But it was after hours and the office was closed.

Stopped there today - spaces 44 ft long, 14 wide with 12 foot high doors - they had "hurricane" availability for $25! Not $25 per night, $25 for the duration until the campgrounds reopened.

WAH!

Guess where I'll be hiding if the one off the African coast comes our way.
Suggest anyone else near the coast investigate storage units, vacant buildings, etc. NOW.


AAAAARGH, too soon old, too late smart. (ALMOST makes me hope we get a second one.)


Paula

[JFScheck]

Nice Find, might have to look locally!