Irene, Goodnight Irene.

I’ll see you in my nightmares more like.

Looks like we creek dwellers are in the path of Hurricane Irene, the storm may just graze the Delaware beaches on its (her?) way north.  The beach areas are under compulsory evacuation. Current predictions here on the eastern shore are for 70 MPH winds, 10 inches of rain and an eight foot tidal storm surge.  Depending on the state of the tide late on Saturday that may put water three or four feet over my dock and could completely submerge my pilings.  Right now we have no water at all in the creek, it went out like water down a drain today and will probably come roaring back almost as fast late tomorrow with the wind.

I am well down my checklist –

  • Doubled up the mooring lines on the big boat (a delicate calculation required for length, the slip is 50′ by 20′ the boat is 44′ by 15′, so what length of line is required to accommodate an 8′ rise in water level without allowing the boat to touch the pilings?)
  • The floating dock is secured.
  • Power and water to the dock are turned off
  • Dockboxes are empty (they always fill with water)
  • Furniture either removed from the dock or chained down.
  • Generator is checked out and fuelled.
  • Spare fuel tanks are filled
  • Cars are in the garage
  • Dinghy (inflatable rescue boat) is on the trailer in the garage with the checked and fuelled motor on it, and yes the life jackets are in there.

On a lighter note, I am told the local Walmart has run out of milk, bread, flashlight batteries and snow shovels (joke).

More tomorrow, must go and checkout the chainsaw (and the camera).

Unknown's avatar

Author: Low Wattage

Expat Welshman, educated (somewhat) in UK, left before it became fashionable to do so. Now a U.S. Citizen, and recent widower, playing with retirement and house remodeling, living in Delaware and rural Maryland (weekends).

27 thoughts on “Irene, Goodnight Irene.”

  1. You sound well-prepared, LW.

    I must admit, from a very safe distance, I find the whole thing quite awe-inspiring, not to say terrifying, and you have chosen to stay put!

    Good luck, and I hope you and the family stay safe.

  2. Keep your head down, LW and all the best. We will still expect piccies, however. 🙂

    OZ

  5. Wonder whether it might have been wiser to leave but then I wouldn’t either!
    Probably have a pile up on the Interstate!
    Hope all goes well, I am watching it on NOAA.
    By the way I left a last entry on your Washington earthquake blog.

    Has it occurred to you that god doesn’t actually want A Martin Luther King appreciation on Sunday?
    First he cracks up the Cathedral and now he’s trying to drown the SOBs!
    Spousal unit tottering about gently teeheeing. Have they cancelled it as yet?

  7. Thank you all, I don’t think there is any real danger here from this one, it seems to be breaking up over the Carolinas (wishful thinking perhaps) . I’m certainly glad I’m not struggling up the Intracoastal this month, it was cold in March but the winds were gentle. I note the Atlantic fleet has put to sea from Norfolk Roads, not a ship left there apparently.

    CO: I saw your comment on the Earthquake post (it was FEEG’s blog) but your opinion on these matters is appreciated.

    Re: MLK,—– not one of my heroes, a pol. and a lecher (sp?) to boot! If there is any justice DC will be washed away in its entirety this weekend (sorry FEEG). Your small “g” god raised a smile.

  8. LW –

    It’s = it is (or it has).
    Its = possessive, belonging to it.

    Please, when I’ve corrected your English, don’t re-error it. 🙄

  9. Well I’m pleased to read your comment 7

    I’d heard overnight (CBS or CNN) that this was ‘a once in a century event.’ (Perhaps next year then :))

    Best wishes either way.

  12. Number one son is in Arlington VA with his missus. He has stocked up from the local Giant!

  13. Sorry Bearsy, It didn’t “look” right (and still doesn’t). Probably the unhandy sentence construction contributes. Thanks for the bullets?

    Janus: Heavy on the beer, light on the teabags and Mars bars, passed on the Marmite.

  14. 3:00 pm local time update. Raining hard (~an inch per hour) with winds of +30 mph out of the North East (that’s straight at my office corner window), visibility – fair (poor later :)). Still very low water in the creek. Satellite TV- out, Satellite Internet -out, Wireless internet – OK so far. Electricity still on. Impressive considering it is now only a cat. 1 and the eye is still more than 200 miles South of here and only approaching at about 15 mph.

    Must try to remember the cadence of the shipping forecast for the next update.

  15. Hello LW

    Hurricanes, bit like one night stands, here today, gone tomorrow 😉

    stay safe

  17. Bearsy – Important as grammar and the position of the apostrophe undoubtedly is, there is a time and a place for everything and I suspect LW is more concerned right now about where his boat (of which he recently wrote so eloquently) but, more importantly, his house will be on Monday. It’s all a question of priorities. 🙂

    OZ

  18. Oh FFS OZ – Who took any bloody notice when Cyclone Yasi came through here? Irene is only a Cat 1, whereas Yasi was a Cat 5.

    I spend ages every morning correcting HTML problems, which is fair enough, but the number of simple ‘O’ level grammar and spelling mistakes that I’ve had to correct recently is getting right up my nose.

    And then to have the corrections removed and replaced by the same mistake is way over the top. As to then saying that the correct English “looks wrong” – words fail me. 😥

  19. OK Bearsy. There’s apparently a biggie over the Philippines right now and hardly a word of it over here. The next time I am in Brisbane or you are in Portugal we must get together and thrash it out over a few cold ones.

    OZ

  20. Heh, after many years in Hong Kong, I have to say that I find all the fuss in the US meeja faintly amusing. That is not, of course, to belittle the precautions you are having to take, LW. It’s just that having had to go through that sort of thing three or four – sometimes more – times per Typhoon ‘season,’ it does all seem a little overblown.

  21. OZ – Indeed we must; I would treasure the opportunity. 🙂
    No disrespect to LW was intended, but whilst cyclones may come and cyclones may go, yet our linguistic heritage is for ever.

  22. 12:30 PM local time. I finally have an internet connection, intermittent and slow. I have a few pictures but most of the action was between midnight and dawn during horizontal rain. We did get our 10 inches of rain and our 70mph winds but little or no storm surge (it was low tide early this morning).

    No electricity since 10 pm yesterday, there are two trees across the nearest public road that have taken a couple of poles down, the wires are still on the road (not energized). I am running the generator for refrigeration and well water. The boat floated again about 8 this morning.

    Bearsy: My “looks” comment was not intended as criticism your apostrophic corrections. Try to imagine how strange written English looks to a Welshman, whose grandfather was a grocer. 🙂

    Bravo: I think the “Weather Channel” here is total entertainment, little useful information (evacuation routes and shelter locations for example), and a lot of prats hopping about in the rain and shouting OTT warnings. Their sole merit may be that things are never as bad as they forecast.

  23. Glad to hear you have made it through unscathed, the outer banks seem to have taken a bashing.
    Hardly the time to fret about punctuation!
    We are beginning to feel quite guilty here in the NW, we have had a very pleasant summer of normality, well, until the ‘big one’ gets us anyway!
    Spousal unit continually urges me to go to Yellowstone “While it is still there!”

  25. I survived Typhoon Rose (1971) in Hong Kong.140 mile an hour winds, 130 direct fatalities. The Hong Kong-Macau ferry sank along with 300 boats that were either sunk or damaged. USS Regulus ran aground and by lunchtime when the bars opened for business, the favorite drink was ‘Regulus on the rocks. They don’t fuck about in Hong Kong!

  26. Tocino: I spent a lot of time in Hong Kong in the early seventies, mostly waiting for plane connections. Before they built a proper airport the planes seemed to land on part of the city docks, the approach was down a city street between tall buildings, the runway (singular), cleverly built perpendicular to the prevailing wind. The landings were interesting, the takeoffs, scary.

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