That picture was taken around noon time today and the day has not deteriorated at all since. It’s hard to believe we’ll be in the middle of a hurricane in another 36 hours. Tomorrow morning is supposed to be the same with conditions worsening as Irene bears down on us.
Looking at a day like today, it’s easy to understand how, 50 years ago, people could be caught completely flat footed. Even if people were to hear about a big hurricane, who’d think that it was going to make it all the way up here into the Northeast? Hurricane modeling and so forth gives us a big advantage nowadays.
For those curious, we’re solidly in the purple area of this graphic I captured off of The Weather Channel’s site:
In fact, I’ve seen path projections that would take Irene directly over us, but the majority of the projections place her out to the West of Hartford. We thought about packing up and heading out, but based on the track and the projected impact area there’s no where to go. Even to the north of us, amazingly, is expected to get a pretty good licking from Irene.
I’ve never experienced a hurricane, so I have no reference point for what to expect. My biggest concern are those trees in the 1st picture. That’s our Southern sky, so that’s where all the wind and rain will be coming from. Those trees are probably 70 to 80 feet tall, and they’re parked about 30 feet or so from the house. The math there isn’t hard. Since I can’t cut them down at this point, I’ve at least prepped my chainsaw for some work in the event the worst happens.
As far as other preparations, we’ve got flashlights, canned goods and propane for cooking. Additionally, we’ll be filling tubs as well as pitchers with water and turning our freezers and fridges to max sometime early tomorrow afternoon. We don’t lose power often out here (not even last Winter during the 2 big snow storms), but I’ll be very surprised if we don’t lose power. We don’t have a generator, but we’ll make the most of it.
We’ll also be, essentially, cleaning off our deck and front porch. Plants, chairs, umbrellas, picnic tables all will get relocated to minimize the chance they get picked up and deposited somewhere. Even though the wind predictions have diminished, best not to take any chances with stuff getting airborne. That’s the main chore to be done at this point.
We’re prepared to ride tomorrow night out in our basement, if need be. We’ll treat it like a camp out to try and keep the kids from getting too freaked out. They may well be the biggest challenge as they both don’t care for extreme weather. The boy in particular. I’ll need a lot of patience.
The timing is the strangest element to this storm, for me. Tomorrow we’ve got a birthday party to attend and then on Monday school starts for the kids. That’ll be a helluva end-to-the-Summer-start-of-school.
Record setting snow in the Winter; tornadoes this Spring; and now a hurricane in the Summer. Wonder when the locusts are gonna show?
One reply on “The Calm Before the Storm”
I have been through two…one in college and one in Baltimore…essentially you are doing all the right stuff. Make sure you have supplies, batten down the hatches, and find a safe place to ride it out. Depending on your flooding potential, that is really the biggest issue, outside of how the heavy wind may workout your shingles. The sheer volume of rain can overwhelm even the most effective drainage situations, and that is what got Baltimore a few years back during Isabelle (I think that was her name).
I can tell you that you will be very smart to clear the decks, the last thing you want to have to do is go outside in the middle of it and deal with anything. Also…plan on having a drainage option at the ready for the pool.
Good luck!