Irene

[Diverdan]

I hope all of our posters/members/contributors to Daddy's who live in Irene's path will all be safe. I have been watching the news casts almost non-stop and am very concerned for all of you.... I hope and pray you will all survive without any damage or problems.

DD

[+ sf westcoaster]

I, like Diverdan, am praying that all of you will escape any damage to person or property. Know that someone on the west coast is thinking of you.

[fedssocr1]

I hope all of our posters/members/contributors to Daddy's who live in Irene's path will all be safe. I have been watching the news casts almost non-stop and am very concerned for all of you.... I hope and pray you will all survive without any damage or problems.

DD

 

yeah, well, stop watching newscasts. they exists primarily to scare the shit out of everyone because for some reason that is good for ratings. The TV channels in DC have been going nonstop since dawn (probably before dawn). And because we're basically on the outer edge of this thing it's just been a lot of rain and a bit of wind but nothing especially dangerous. So they just keep showing us their stupid reporters standing out at the beaches getting blown around when everyone else evacuated. Between the breathless coverage of a minor event like that earthquake and this weather situation I think they lose a lot of credibility. But for some reason people still let themselves get all freaked out.

 

Now, if you are right on the coast, that is a completely different story and there is certainly some danger. But the overkill coverage that we are seeing in DC is laughable.

[Steven_Draker]

But the overkill coverage that we are seeing in DC is laughable.

 

I guess the reason for it is that in the past many didn't pay attention to the warnings and got killed, injured or stranded in similar circumstances.

 

Better safe than sorry.

[josephga]

It was very hot here today in Atlanta and the wind is starting to pick up other than that it's been a normal day I kinda wish it would rain some and cool things off

[Cooper]

Irene....

 

DD, thanks for the well wishes, personally, I can't wait till it's over. Seems like we've been hearing about it for days... Wishing everyone a "Good night Irene".... Stay safe, Coop

 

The music video showing the devastation is already out...

 

[JT Brooklyn]

Sobering Sunday!

 

This Hurricane no matter what number...will slowly chip away FOR HOURS unlike the Heavy Rain Storms NYC is used to for a few hours which usually only inconvenience at most!

 

I'm very Thankful for not being one of the Skyscraper Dwellers! We now will see just how well they are Built..seeing as how they put some of them up within 6 months!

 

"Irene" could once again change the Real Estate Market in NYC for the worse! 911 moved many out of Battery Park and into Brooklyn... NOW Hurricane possibilities may do the same thing in the future.... Whoever started the "Welcome to Brooklyn /The New Manhattan was right"!

[+ deej]

A Cat 1 hurricane isn't really that bad, in any given minute. I've been through more destructive thunderstorms, but thunderstorms don't pound your house for 12 hours or more. The destructive capacity in this storm comes because it's HUGE, it's slow-moving, and it's carrying huge amounts of water into areas that were already having flooding problems. (And tornadoes in Delaware have taken a toll as well.)

 

The problem Manhattan will have that other areas mostly don't is altitude. In addition to rain, storm surge, tornadoes, and sustained Cat 1 winds, the winds get worse the higher you go. If you're on the 30th floor, the winds will be 20% stronger than at ground level, and around the 80th to 100th floor it's 30% stronger. So the TOP half of Manhattan may face Cat 2 winds, while the lower floors only see Cat 1. Add some flying debris bouncing off those hi-rise windows and you could see some breakage.

 

Media hype may not be to your liking, but the storm killed three people in Virginia (so far), and more in North Carolina. Two yahoos had to be rescued this evening when they decided to go kayaking in NY harbor and got in trouble, forcing emergency responders to put THEIR lives at risk.

 

Take care, y'all. Stay safe. But no matter how jaded you are or how invincible you feel, STAY INSIDE.

[leigh.bess.toad]

Guys, I've been living through it for the last 19 hours. I'm on the outer edges of it. I'm 120 miles away to the west from the eye right now which is almost parallel with me now. As of right now, 77% of Richmond has no power. I'm one of the lucky 23%.

 

There are trees down everywhere. Typical low lying areas flooded. Deej is right -- it isn't the steady wind or even the gusts or the rain, by themselves. It's the relentless pounding that goes on hour after hour after hour. It isn't the volume of water of the Colorado River alone that carved the Grand Canyon. it was the volume plus the time.

 

One little tidbit from tonight's news: at 1054, they measured wind gusts. there was a gust of 52 MPH in Philadelphia at the same time there was a 67 MPH gust in Cape Hatteras -- a distance of 318 miles. This storm is massive. I just hope it does gain some forward speed as it moves up the shore.

 

We have quite a few forum members that will be a lot closer to it than I am. One less than 5 miles from the eye path's current track (and the track has moved very little today), and a couple within 20 miles. And one of these guys is on the eastern side of the track which is the bad side. And even though it will be slightly weakened when it gets to NYC area, it still will be bad. First of all, it'll be hitting the Jersey/Long Island shores near high tide which doesn't help at all. Low lying areas WILL flood. Or buried during the surge.

 

I actually put the death toll in Virginia at 4. The fourth was a probably Darwin nominee. Yesterday, as the storm approached, a surfer wanted to catch a big wave at Virginia Beach. Instead, the wave caught him. Of course, today was supposed to be the East Coast Surfing Tournament at Virginia Beach so maybe he was just practicing.

 

Deej is quite correct about the altitude problem in Manhattan. The other thing to mention is the canyon effect of all the skyscrapers. that will magnify the intensity of the wind at ground level considerably as well.

 

Fortunately, it's just about over for me. It was no where near as strong as Isabel. But the damage is almost as severe because of the slow speed and the length of the storm. The other thing to consider is that we did not have already soaked grounds when it came. The ground in areas from Philly northward is already saturated.

 

Bottom line for me: yes the media does hype it. And I hope to God they keep doing it. Because in a battle between man and mother nature, the bitch always wins. And make no mistake: mother nature is a bitch.

[+ FreshFluff]

Well, I'm in one of those skyscrapers, way up around the 30th floor. But I'm in zone D, away from the water, which the official map says is not at major risk. Unless I want to run the probabilities myself, I'll have to take their word for it.

 

The only problem is that I have to get some special moving boxes by Monday in preparation for my trip back to the midwest where I, er, profess during the school year. (Like an idiot, I let the doormen store my extra boxes downstairs, and they were taken.) So I'm hoping some of the stores (like U-haul's) will be up and running by then.

 

BTW, the longest lines anywhere on Wednesday afternoon were in front of nearby wine shop. That line stretched halfway down the block.

[orbital sander]

Good luck guys and take good care!!

[leigh.bess.toad]

As I go to bed, I note two pieces of info, one good, one bad.

 

the bad is that the total outage for my company is now just a few thousand short of 1,000,000. Out of 2.4 million. And Northern virginia is starting to climb, the cumulative effect of the storm is finally having an effect on the outage totals.

 

The good, the 2 am update from NHC shows the sustained winds unchanged, but the forward speed is now showing at 17 mph as opposed to 16 for most of the day. Every little bit helps get it thorugh faster.

 

Good night all.

[+ deej]

BTW, the longest lines anywhere on Wednesday afternoon were in front of nearby wine shop. That line stretched halfway down the block.

 

*chuckle*

 

One of the more amusing memes on Twitter has been people posting about stocking up on essentials to ride out the storm. Wine and beer were high on all of the lists. One guy said he had endless supplies of peanut butter and jelly, but there wasn't any bread to be had. Another guy said he had plenty of Nutella.

 

New Yorkers can be weird beasts.

[uwsman2]

I'm in Manhattan - apartment building not in the A Zone (where evacuation was ordered) but on the Upper West Side, 8th floor, partial river view. Awakened this morning to continuous, pounding rain, but apparently not such high winds. Apartment seems water-tight for now.

 

I have a friend who lives in Battery Park City who insisted on staying in his apartment - high floor, windows facing the harbor. I'm very worried about him. They turned off the power to the elevators in his building yesterday evening, on the theory that if power goes out suddenly, they don't want anybody trapped in elevators between floors, and since the city ordered evacuation of BPC nobody should be there to use the elevators anyway. So I hope things go well for him.

 

Meanwhile, looking forward to being shut-in until late this afternoon when the storm will supposedly have passed through and the rain dies down.

[+ Italiano]

South Brooklyn here, 1.5 miles from Brighton Beach and Coney Island. 7 am ET. Winds and rain, yes, but nothing particularly worrying or different from a bad summer storm in NYC. As for now.

[+ Shoreboy]

I live about 10 miles inland from the Jersey Shore and all of the towns close to me were under a mandatory evacuation from Governor Christie (who in my estimation would have made a perfect barrier reef by simply laying in the sand) and it was a rough night...terrible winds, my power was out for hours and my poor dog stayed so close to me and shivered and shook all night. Got every little sleep but at dawn today the power is back on and outside there is nothing but a lot of leaves and branches all over the place. And the dog has finally stopped shaking and shivering....I will be anxious to go outside and drive over, once the roads reopen to see the damage at the shore. Hope everyone came through Irene okay. I for one am very grateful that all I have to do is clean up leaves and reset cocks....oops...reset clocks

[jjkrkwood]

I am in Queens, at 8:00 am and its pretty non-eventful... some wind and rain, nothing to panic about. And I look out the window and see alot of cars driving down my street. go figure !

[Diverdan]

Thanks for the updates, guys... and glad to know all is relatively well.... at least as well as can be under the circumstances. It does appear that things were not as bad as it might have been, but it will clearly be days or weeks before all is back to normal. Having grown up in the midwest, I have dealt with thunderstorms and tornados, and in traveling with earthquakes, but I think I will pass on wanting to experience a hurricane.

DD

[wayout]

It seems the government (fed, state and local) have been fairly proactive in preparing for a potential catastrophe and would act fairly aggressively should it happen. Would others agree with that assessment? The optimist in me says they learned some valuable lessons from Katrina. The pessimist in me says they are protecting the center of capitalism in the US (plus alot of valuable donors).

[JT Brooklyn]

"Praise The Lord"! Bettter Safe than Sorry!

 

Looks like a normal Neurotic as usual NYC Monday Morning for us all BUT some have learned to go with the "Never Say Never Theory"!

 

Hopefully those in New England are as Lucky!

 

P.S.The guys on the Weather Channel looking somewhat depressed with the CHANGE in developments after 9 a.m.

[bcohen7719]

"Praise The Lord"! Bettter Safe than Sorry!

 

Looks like a normal Neurotic as usual NYC Monday Morning for us all BUT some have learned to go with the "Never Say Never Theory"!

 

Hopefully those in New England are as Lucky!

 

P.S.The guys on the Weather Channel looking somewhat depressed with the CHANGE in developments after 9 a.m.

 

BrooklyGuy:

 

You're absolutely right. The weather people and also news people look

sheepish. It is now about 11:00 am in Greenwich Village, and it is just

drizzling.

 

BC

[+ glutes]

I just heard a news blurb of how Oral Roberts/Falwell/Pat Robertson have teamed up with other alleged christian leaders and are explaining that the hurricane is god's wrath being directed at NYC because they passed Same Sex Marriage.

[leigh.bess.toad]

I just heard a news blurb of how Oral Roberts/Falwell/Pat Robertson have teamed up with other alleged christian leaders and are explaining that the hurricane is god's wrath being directed at NYC because they passed Same Sex Marriage.

 

I mean, you know we had to be responsible somehow, didn't you. But Im just wondering why we can't blame the Texas drought on Rick Perry and the religious right wing nut jobs down there.

 

In the end, it looks like Virginia and NC took the worst of it. Virginia is down to about 800k power outages, from a peak of about 1.1 million. Trees are down everywhere in Richmond and the most frequent sound today in town is a chain saw. And forget the concept of fast food. The lines are circling the building at any place that has power. It will probably be a week or two before everyone is restored.

[jjkrkwood]

11:41 in NYC. Sun coming out, Ba-Bye Irene. No biggie in my part of town. No flooding, 1 tree down. All-in-all, a Big Whomp-Whomp !!!!

Now what do I do with all these fucking candles ????? I'd need to be 100 years old to put em on a Birthday cake.

[justaguy]

Pretty much a non-event in my neck of the woods. Some big winds and a lot of rain but I've seen a lot worse. I did lose power at 8:30 last night (I'll take that up with LBT later) but it was just restored, a full 24 hours ahead of when Dominion said it would be. Life is good, and sometimes the gods smile a bit.