Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Hurricane Irene: The Aftermath


Despite my parents & my brother both wanting me to stay with either of them, I stuck out the hurricane at my place by myself.

Being alone doesn't bother me, even in a crazy situation like that. From following the news on the storm, I didn't think it was going to be strong enough to blow the house away or anything.

However, I was bracing myself for a certain level of carnage, while stocking up on the survival essentials: jugs of water, a freezer full of ice, trail mix, pizza, & of course beer.

It started raining around 2PM on Saturday & I went to my parents for dinner then drove back afterward, before it really picked up at night. It seemed like there was non-stop rain but, fortunately, a lack of extremely violent winds. The rain didn't stop completely for about 20 hours. Around 2AM when the center of the storm was supposedly passing by, I went outside onto my back patio & it seemed like a normal rainstorm.

The next afternoon, the only damage I could see was a big tree that fell in the yard across the street. I had a couple leaks, but my house was still standing.

It wasn't till the day after when I realized how much water had been dumped on the area. There's several lakes near me, & alot of roads had sections that were flooded over.

Unfortunately basement flooded from all the rainfall, so I was sitting on my cellar steps pumping water last nite. All of a sudden a helicopter started flying overhead. My brother texted me the report he saw on Action News 6. Someone had tried to drive through a blocked section of road that had flooded & need to be rescued about a mile from me.

I've seen some Youtube videos of the flooding & it's pretty extreme. Despite the unstoppable power of nature, though, it's impressive how resilient people can be in such harsh conditions.

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