Hurricane Irene

[Daffy]

Just want to wish all of our east coast members good luck, you'll be in our thoughts over the next few days. Stay safe guys! [-o<

[commodoreann]

Thanks Jane.
Peter and I are race committee at our sailing club Sunday. We have been monitoring the weather. It seems the winds will be somewhere between 40-50 mph with a few inches of rain. There is no way I am going on a crash boat or committee boat during a hurricane . We are awaiting cancellation of the races and plan to stay home.
I am planning to take in our plants, lawn furniture and anything else that is outside. The weather station on television has many computer outlines of what they guess the storm's path will take. Only time will tell.

Ann

[Stan]

Good post Jane. Stay safe guys!

[Paul Victory]

I've just been watching coverage on Sky News. It sounds horrific and they still managed to find some idiots who say that the warnings are overstated.

I hope all our Free Spirits teammates and their family and friends stay safe.

Paul V

[cweed]

Greetings from soggy, wet Maryland. This was not a great storm for us. Our newly finished basement flooded. The power went out about 6 pm Saturday on the leading edge of the storm which shut down the sump pump. No worries becuase we had a brand new battery back up, right? WRONG! It could not keep up with the amount of rain (10" total) so we (as in all 6 of us including my 9 year old) bailed the sump crock for 5 hours to keep from flooding. By 11 pm we realized we were fighting a losing battle so while the kids continued to bail Dennis and I moved what we could out of the flood zone. "Honey get your erg upstairs" was what Dennis said to me when we realized we could not stay ahead of the water. Then we very sadly watched the basement fill up with water. When we went to bed it was 1" deep, by morning 3". As exhausting as it was, I am still glad we bailed for as long as we did since we have friends who had 8-12" in their basements. The drywall is wet up to the 14" mark and I am sure the insulation is not much better.

Sunday we borrowed a generator and drained the basement and spent the day with the shop vac. Monday we pulled up the carpet, removed all of the baseboards, and finally got our power back after 45 hours. Yesterday we rented a bunch of industrial fans and dehumidifiers which are very hard to find at the moment, literally you have to show up right as the truck shows up to get them. Still waiting for the insurance adjuster. Damage is so widespread they are pretty busy.

I have several trees lying across the roof of my shed. The tree guys have me on their list...right after the 115 houses with trees on their houses! I know some of the people that had their homes crushed so really can't complain about just having water in my basement. We also lost several trees in the yard so today will be cut the branches off and drag them to the street day as the county is providing free pick up of storm debris and my work force is out of school for the third day as the power outages are still widespread.

So other than the disappointment of the basement flooding which means my house will be in construction mode again, we are fine and have much to be thankful for in the end.

[Daffy]

Christine, thank you for taking the time out to tell us what happened.

I for one am so glad that you and yours are ok. The basement must feel like a blow to you though, after all the work to get it done. It sounds like you all did a very good job to minimise the damage. Good team spirit from the kids! You're right to look on the bright side - all lives intact, erg safe...

I hope the clean up for you and your area can happen as quickly as possible. Wishing you good luck again for the coming weeks. Getting some metres in on the rescued erg should help de-stress.

[strider77]

Christine, So glad that you are yours are Ok, the basement damage is a bummer but you are all well which is great news, our TV news over here about Irene was horrific and its good to know that our friends are Ok

[Stan]

Thanks for the update Christine and its good to hear you are all safe. Sounds like you all pulled together to limit the damage, so it could have been worse.

[commodoreann]

Christine,

Sorry to read about your horror story as there were so many. Good luck in your recovery to get back on track and hope the insurance company cooperates.http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/at201109.asp
We had great wind and rain as well but no flooding in our basement. We did however lose a few old growth trees in our back yard. When one went down, it took out a few more so at present we have a little more sunlight than before. The trees missed our back deck by 20-25 feet. We are planning to enlarge our deck and covered area and selfishly hoped the trees could have hit our deck.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irene_%282011%29
We drove to New Jersey the day after the storm and the New York State Thruway was closed and a 2 1/2 trip took 5 hours. New York state is flooded west of us and Vermont took a big hit and some ski areas were wiped out especially Killington Vermont.http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-29/t ... ebook-page Many roads are still flooded and farms to the west of us lost crops. The Gilboa Dam west of us was overflowing and residents were warned to leave their properties. http://www.timesunion.com/local/article ... 154660.php
Our sailing club lost some trees and the kayak a canoe racks were destroyed with the boats on them. Our boat in the boat yard was fine.http://slsc.clubexpress.com/content.asp ... _id=337813
Wednesday we drove to Canada and visited Gaye and Dave McOnie our Free Spirit friends and while driving up there found out the Adirondack roads were flooded and washed out. Canada was just fine, they just have not gotten any rain lately. They did not have the wrath of Irene.

Enough said, I and glad to here from Christine and hope all Free Spirits and safe and well!

Ann