Weather....
 

I know everyone on the East Coast is thinking and watching the weather over the next several days.. First, please be safe out there!!!!

Second, as I live in a coastal community, if we lose power for an extended period, I will have to turn off all my servers and circuits as I don't own a generator (and even if I did, it probably wouldn't be large enough to power all that has to be running to make all this stuff work ;) )... So - anyway - if the site goes down for a while, you know why... (Also - if you try to e-mail me that the site is down - I won't get that either, as I run the mail servers ;) )

Again - Jen's and my thoughts and prayers to all of you in the path of this thing - and please - just stay safe, OK??

John

Good Luck!!

Danny and I will be battening down the hatch's today as we live only a couple of miles from Long Island Sound here in CT. Good luck to everyone in the path of this thing. Stay safe all.

Irene Irony
 

The finals of the East Coast Surfing Championship, held annualy here in VA Beach, will likely be cancelled due to......high surf! (Actually there's no such thing as surf that's too high around here, just that the 70 knot winds make it kinda difficult!)
Wishing the best of luck to all the coastal brethren.
John

Best of luck to all of you on the East Coast.

Ken

Wish all of you guys on the East Coast good luck and be safe...
I knew there was a reason I liked living in Michigan... Eric

Dave, the projected centerline track of Irene's path is right over your house :eek:

Just graduated, so I thought I'd share....

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscart.../mban1969l.jpg

Good luck everyone!!!!!! I wish you well!!!

We're getting weather warnings up here also....for frost! Everyone is encouraged to cover their gardens. I'm glad I just picked 17# of broccoli florets for the freezer. The birch leaves have been turning for a week and are falling in the yard as we speak. Summer is definitely coming to a close. Good luck all you on the east coast.....

While personal safety is of the utmost importance, what with this being the Parker forum and the East Coast having the greatest concentration of (as well as some of the finest) Parkers in the country, perhaps it isn't inappropriate to also hope for their protection as well? So, please everyone, take care of yourselves and your families, but after that is taken care of do what you can to protect those heirloom Parkers! Good luck, and our prayers are with you.

Tomorrow morning when those of us in New England wake up we will find that Hurrcane Irene was much more a media event than a weather event with any significant damage. the media and politicians use such events to get us glued to TV for their benefit, not ours. I am predicting several inches of rain and a little wind equal to a winter Nor'easter. It will be a non event and tomorrow we hear of changes in the weather pattern that couldn't be predicted weakening the storm and sparing us. Some day New England might be hit with a Hurricane of signifance like the one in '38. This ain't it.

Down here on the coast in CT we have 60 mph winds many trees and power lines down and alot of flooding. My street is impassable right now but we still have power as of now. Not the worst I've seen but a pretty messy day.

I agree, mostly hype from the weatherman, they shouldn't cry wolf so ofter. One of these times it will be real.

I'm on backup generator power but living in the woods I expect that when the wind blows at even moderate speeds.

I just wish it were over so the humidity would drop.

Pete, I'm going to hold off on the storm assessment until it's actually here. Right now about a mile from the shore in Braintree we're getting bursts of wind well over 50 mph and the storm won't be here for another couple hours. Sounds like a freight train outside but so far only a couple of 150 year old maples have lost 6" diameter limbs. My concern? Ground is saturated, not frozen and the treees are full of leaves. Glad I won't have to shovel it but I left my darn chain saw up north!

Jim ,Better head out right away and buy a new chain saw ,if there like Generators in Pa. after the first good Snow Storm ,the price will Triple over night ! Wish our investments would go that route for a change ! Best ; Russ

Media hype!! I agree Pete

Tomorrow is the first day of school for a great many New England towns, including the town in New Hampshire where my grandchildren live. In their infinite wisdon (fueled by 'media hype' from T.V., radio and the Internet) the School Boards have cancelled school in many of these towns. It will be a beautiful sunny day with stiff breezes in the morning but there will be no school on the very first day. Many schools are beginning a week earlier this year because of the 'snow days' last winter... also due to 'media hype'. What is happening to America?? Are we becoming a nation of sheep? The cancellation of school days has an enormous impact on families as well as the productivity of businesses where parents must take time off from work to be with their children :nono:

Yeah; the 'media blitz' has reached comic proportions here around the nations' capital. Unbelivably enough, we did not lose power, and its the first storm of any kind, even a summer thunderstorm, that did not knock it out! The local wisdom is that the new transformer substation they built after Hurricane Isabel a few miles up the road from us saved our bacon. We had the strong winds (max around here near Dulles Airport were around 30-40 with gusts up to 55mph) when she blew through here around 2AM Sunday morning. By 10AM the sky was sunshiney and bright with big fleecy clouds, temps in the hi 60s, and a wonderful breeze all morning long. Virtually no large trees down anywhere around, another miracle! Home Depots and Lowe's ran out of D-cell batteries and 8-ft. lengths of perforated as well as solid black plastic drain pipe by around 9AM Saturday. I wrote off the media after a sweet young thing cub reporter gushed just after the recent local earthquake near Charlottesville, VA: "Despite widespread damage on the ground, there does not appear to be any threat of a tsunami at this time."

Va. Beach got it for about 15 hours. The storm stalled after it came ashore in NC. I had no damage but I lost power and it is still out. I am using a generator so it isn't too bad. The tide was up aout 7 1/2 feet. Research letters will be slow for awhile.

If anybody needs any pine cones, I have millons you are welcome too.

Mark

:biglaugh::biglaugh::biglaugh:

And I have oak leaf clusters, branches and acorns free for the takin'

I had to brush-hog my driveway last evening when I got home from Maine.

It seem we along the coast did better than my family in southern Vermont. Torrential rain with almost no wind created flash floods of epic proportions. Many bridges gone,two dams broke. The town of Willmington is half gone down the river along with the towns of Marlboro and South Newfane. My brothers road is gone and it will be about 3 weeks before he can get out. RT 100 has houses parked on it. It's a mess and came without warning. Funny the media doesn't talk about this.

Cause it's not NEW YORK CITY.....dummy....! On Sunday I did see a quick mention about VT and then we went back Live to NYC for something much more important shot of Broadway with no one walking around...... That's my comments from the peanut gallery..

Mark, my son now lives right around you in VA Beach (Baltic Ave.). His fiance is a trauma unit physician over at the Chesapeake Medical Center in Chesapeake VA and had 24/7 duty from Friday 6pm through Sunday noon. Brendan very wisely snagged a motel room early Wed. over near the hospital so he could see her on breaks durin the storm. Worked out great, but they have not been back over to see if their place in VA Beach had any damage (they are up about 5 floors overlooking the main drag to the ocean). They had plenty of emergency supplies, but I'll check with him about the pine cones.

Looks like JD escaped the dance; the site has been up and running without fail.

Thanks JD

I sure was wrong on my assessment of this storm. The cable TV weather reports had me in line for a direct hit and painted my expected experience as life altering. Well, I had heavy rain and strong blustery wind, but not the hurricane they predicted. Not even close and I was suppose to be at the center of its path as it came through New England. It actually went a bit West of me.

Today, on my ride to work I saw how lucky I was. Yesterday on the TV all I saw was wet empty streets in NYC, I assumed that they were obvious reporting with the absolute worst backdrop they could find, even it wasn't representative of general conditions for the drama. But today, I see trees down everywhere, roads closed and homes damaged and now I finally learn that towns in Vermont are under water.

I guess I was very lucky at my home to not experience any of the nasty parts of this storm. I never expected to see this much damage from the storm that passed over my house (it seemed mild) and I was reported to be in the center of it all! What a difference a few miles can make

Hi Fred,

Many thanks... I did back all my servers thinking there was a good chance that either the 100 foot spruce or the huge maple would fall on the garage (my office is above the garage, where all this runs from), but, it wasn't to be.. Usually Jen & I lose power at the slightest hint of high winds or heavy rains...??

Anyway, my thanks! No one was more astonished then we were...

John

Well I survived the not so BIG blow named Irene. At 1PM Sunday my power went out and it was finally restored in the last hour. It is clear the Public Service Company of NH's maintenance of the power grid is sub par. 2 1/4" of rain and the highest gust recorded was 45mph. No power 29 hours. What would we have done if it was a real storm!

We have seen "film footage" (digital) of the flooding and destruction in the wake of Irene.

Here are some pictures I took in Maine on Sunday just before Irene arrived - next morning all was sunny and bright. A few limbs down, minor flooding, and a lot of expended effort by residents all around us to secure their properties and belongings, boats, awnings and anything else that might blow away or otherwise become damaged by wind and water.

We checked in with some old neighbors in Fairfield County, CT (lived there 3 times). Trees and power lines blocking most streets. No gas pumps available if you could get to them. Estimate at this point is power out for a week.

Here in Weathersfield ,Vt we only had tons of rain for a 24 hour period and some light wind ,maybe 25 to 35 mph for a short time last night . My house is at abt. elevation 1160 and the Connecticut is at elev. 285 and 2 miles east and is buldging at the seams at the present time . No damage here ,but just west a few miles along Route 106 ,the damage is extensive with loss of bridges , highways , buildings , etc . Up north I think there was more rain and more flooding

It's good to know you're OK Allan. I've tried contacting some friends to the north of you and can't get in touch with them. They often lose electricity and I'm hoping that's all it is this time.

Pete,
We lost power at 4:00am Sunday and best guess is with half a million homes still without power it's going to be a while. There are crews here from Alabama and Georgia, I can't imagine what this state would have done if the storm came in as a cat 1 or 2.
Hopefully they have learned a lesson and will start keeping the trees cut back from the power lines. If some of that federal stimulus money was used to improve the power grid instead of lining the pockets of political cronies’ we all would have benefited.
Now we await all that water from Allan’s place to flow down thru the already overflowing Connecticut River. Life is good.:)

If thats your boat Dean I'll b there in a couple days with my pole. What do I need for a rig.:)

The problem is a bit more complicated in NH. For most of my life we had a single state regulated utility and the state approved the electric rate. We had a well maintained grid. In the late 90's politicians decided to deregulate electrical power and when that was done the major utility no longer had exclusive ownership of the grid, they had to share the grid with competitiors and thus have no monetary incentive to keep it up beyond minimum standards.

Fonda Flood
 

The attached picture shows The Mohawk between Fonda and Fultonville NY, Monday morning. Fonda Speedway was the original Darlington style track; still good racing there but in the 1960's it was the home track of Bill Wimble and Ernie Gahan, NASCAR modified champions. House at the bottom of the frame was the home of Harvey Donaldson, famous rifleman and founder of NBRSA. Harvey and my father cast silk lines on the lawn. Harvey taught me to mount his GH, throwing apples on that lawn. It was Harvey's LC 16 that I wrote the DGJ article about.
I grew up just outside the lower left corner. My daughter Carolyn lives there now. She lost her furnace, water heater and possibly her freezer, although water has risen further in her cellar two previous times in the 10 years she has lived there. My son Austin L lives about a mile away across the river in Fonda in his grandfather's house. His street flooded but water didn't rise above the curb. He is the science teacher at the school on the hill in the background.
Here in Piermont, we got 4 inches of rain and wind less than gale force; not even any dead limbs down. Power was off about 12 hours apparently due to distant cut off.

Best, Austin

8" black rubber worm with hot red auger tail rigged Texas style with a small lead (:cool:) split shot at the nose is the best there is on my lake. I lose a bunch of tackle because I chuck them right into the fallen trees... but I haul out some nice largemouths.... mostly from a canoe though.

It's good to know you're all right Austin. Of course, water levels won't affect you up on the hill there. I'll bet the Connecticut is flowing pretty full right now and the pictures I've seen of the Pemi are pretty discouraging... washing out roads, houses, bridges - just awful.

If you would like to view some of the havic that Irene produced ,Google youtube under Woodstock VT , Weathersfield ,VT Quechee,VT---water is extremely powerful .

Ran my workboat from Eastern Bay to the Severn to try and find a protected anchorage. Spent the storm on the boat and had lots of wind! Had to reset the anchor in the middle of the night mid-storm and dodged several loose boats. Minor damage to my boat from wind and a lost GPS antenna. Not a fun experiance.