HURRICANE IRENE

[hpooch]

It seems that the East Coast of the U.S. has had some unusual happenings the last 10 days....
Last week there was a 5.8 Earthquake felt from Virginia, Washington DC, New York & up to Canada...Very Rare indeed!
And now there is HURRICANE IRENE going thru North Caroline today, and then hitting the Eastern states including N.J. &
New York City & Boston Saturday night & Sunday with up to 100 mph winds along the Atlantic shores & beaches,
with 8-12 feet waves & 5-10 inches of rain that will cause 4-10 feet of flood waters closing the subways.
My oldest son and his family live in NYC and he works in lower Manhattan, so I hope all will take precautions,
and the mayor of NYC is ordering evacuation of person living along the low lying areas of New York City & Long Island.

[Sandra]

This sounds dreadful Henry.
I hope that you and your family will stay safe.
We will be thinking of everyone.

[mariana44]

I have been reading about this, and it certainly sounds terrible---it must be awful,when all you an do it sit and wait !!

Hope your family will be safe Henry--also Paul, because I know he is oin the hurricane path too.

The whole world's weather has gone crazy !!

[karl]

Isn't it just meant to hit the East Coast? I am usually returning from there at this time, hope it changes course and blows out to sea, we usually get the end of the storms over here as they blow over the Atlantic.

One time in Boston we prepared for a storm and it never happened, was I glad!?

[Lena & Harry Smith]

We have seen this on the news again this morning and like Marian, we are wondering what is going on in the world, so much devastation so frequently happening in different parts of the world.
We are thinking of all those who will be affected and hope everyone stays safe and this Hurricane passes swiftly and hopefully with minimal damage and harm.

[mariana44]

Yes Karl it is the East coast--Henry's family lives in New York, and Paul in Maryland--which they definately mentioned as being in the path---But I cannot say that I have ever heard of such a bad hurricane to hit New York. Although I just heard on the news that it has been downgraded--with winds of up to 80 mph, rather than 100mph.

[Marian]

I read tonight there had been the first fatality of Hurricane Irene. I hope all our East Coast friends stay safe. You are all in our thoughts.

[john]

Thinking of you all in the East Coast and hope you are all o.k.

[hpooch]

Thanks for all your good wishes and prayers. We really appreciate all your kind thoughts.
As of this morning, the hurricane was downgraded to a tropical storm when it hit Manhattan.
There was many floods from the North Carolina to Maine and over 4 million families with out power!
My oldest son, Steve and his family were all OK as he phoned me this morning.
Hopefully Paul also was safe and back to normal in Maryland. Good News for Everyone on the East Coast!

[mariana44]

I have been following this on Sky news on and off all day,and was so relieved that it as not as bad as expected--I could not imagine the sort of devastation it could have caused New York if it had stayed at Hurricane strength, although things are still pretty tough , I believe.

[Lana]

Our power was back on today at noon after a two day outage. High winds Sunday night were to blame for that. Lots of rain here caused flooding and Vermont has been hit the worst. Thanks for all the good wishes. They are appreciated !!

[karl]

My friend had minor damage to his house but other people had trees landing on their's!

[mariana44]

Hope thinga are getting back to normal for you Lana-what an ordeal !

[Lana]

Things are pretty okay at home right now. However, I saw a video clip of the damaged caused by flooding in Vermont and could not believe my eyes! Route 4 is the major highway running east and west through this state. It's the route that our son and his friends take in the winter to go skiing and snowboarding at Mt. Killington. Half of the road is literally carved away and there are deep gullies below. Today the news is warning of flash floods for Vermont and upstate (northern) New York in the next few days. My brother lives about a half hour north of me in central New Hampshire and has a small brook behind his home. It became a major stream during Irene but luckily he did not experience flooding. My son's move in day at the University of New Hampshire was pushed up to Saturday before the storm hit and their classes on Monday were cancelled. I belong to our local Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and our members were asked for availability to set up the shelter in our town's middle school. Fortunately, we didn't need to do this ... this time.

[mariana44]

Thanks for the update Lana--I think we may have forgotten after the first devastating storm, that this is still an ongoing major problem for you all.