Time to Batten Down Everything!

[2Labs]

We’ve been home for a week or so, after the last leg of our trip, and after tracking Hurricane Irene for the last few days, I am glad that we’re here at home base to “batten down the hatches”.

I’m not so glad that we’re here because today’s projected path has Hurricane Irene passing LITERALLY through our backyard. The blue line is the path as projected by Google’s Crisis Response website at http://crisislanding.appspot.com/ (You can input any address, and see where the projected path is) The yellow rectangle, our home and yard!



Time to fill up on fuel in the motorhome, car and all empty canisters. Bring in everything that is outside in the yard and quite possible board up as many windows as we can. Our home has a lot of windows, some that really can’t be boarded up, along with 5 sets of 8′ sliding glass doors.

Now the question of where to park the motorhome safely comes up. I'm leaning towards putting the passenger side along the house, parallel to the side that has the large, steel I-beam holding up the deck. There is a small Japanese Maple tree to the left of the driveway (right next to the Green "garage") and there are two ~20 year old trees to the right of the driveway, just behind the ornamental furs. As long as the deck holds up, and the trees stay rooted I'm hoping that we'll be reasonably secure there.




This was taken about 7 years ago when we first bought the home, before we remodeled the garage into living space.

I'm completely expecting that we'll lose power during this storm - very likely for a few days. We don't have a generator to run the house, so I'm sure we'll be spending some time in the motorhome and maybe even powering up the home refrigerator off the Onan generator in the motorhome.

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day!

[JJH3rd]

Hurricanes have a one-two punch - storm surge and high winds. Depending on the geography and the nature of the storm, the hill of water under a hurricane can sweep over a mile inland. Water is the agent responsible for the complete devastation as evidenced by the windrows of debris that was once homes and other structures. It is worth remembering that in 1968, hurricane Camel caused as many deaths in Pennsylvania because of floods as were killed on the coast of Mississippi.

The wind has a secret punch in addition to gusts of 100+ mph wind - tornadoes. A byproduct of +100mph winds are random vortices (mini tornadoes) that form, dissipate and reform as the wind interacts with the ground. When you hear what sounds like a freight train passing nearby, in the middle of a hurricane, it isn’t a train. It is time to be in the root cellar.

I grew up on the coast of Mississippi and have had too many encounters with these storms. After the storm power and communications systems can take weeks, if not months to be restored. Travel is disrupted because of downed trees and power poles and lines as well as flood damage. There will be shortages for food, fuel and perhaps water – anything that needs a motor driven pump needs electricity which may be a long time before it is restored (for example fuel pumps at filling stations).

The best place to be is way out of the way.

JJ

[Wayne M]

Here, in Texas City after Ike, the area was without power for 17 days. Sometimes it is impossible to get back into an area for several days. Power outages for a long duration will spoil anything you have in your freezer or refrigerator. (Tvust me, we know.) Take as much as you can take and have a neighborhood cookout where ever you land.

I realize you are in an area that probably doesn't get hurricanes that often, but there are items that you can have to protect your windows, including your 8 foot glass areas. I have two such areas, one the sliding patio door, and the other being 3 widows across the front of the house. I had it done professionally, but here is what they did. They used a good gauge corrugated sheet metal , around 16 inches top to bottom, that spans the width of the window. There are holes in the end of the sheet metal that fit over anchor bolts into the framing (or brick if necessary) with 1/4x20 threaded opposite ends. The sheet metal hangs on those anchor bolts and are held on by wing nuts. Each metal sheet is overlapped an inch or so installing from bottom to top of window frame.

Storage is simple and space is optimized. They can be stood up on end and take about 1 square foot of space, or the can be placed on the rafters of a storage area. Weight would be a concern there if they are stacked. One person can handle each piece with no problem. It takes me a little over an hour to put up all of the pieces.

I know this is a little late, but for any one planning on future storms it is an option that can be prepared for.

I do not remember the gauge of the sheet metal, but I'm thinking it is 22 or 24 gauge. I can measure if need be, and I think I have some pictures squirreled away.

Good luck to all who are in the path of Irene. Above anything else, stay safe.

[Billieg]

I went through hurricane Charlie and not only lost my home but I lost my wife of 23 years. If you want my advice, load up the rig and get out of Dodge! Irene is a 3 and could turn into a 4. If it does kiss your A** goodbye.....

I watched Charlie blow my 3 car garage in one piece a mile down the road. What kind of "boards" do you think will work to protect your house? Charlie flattened my brand new "up to Dade county" code home into a million pieces. Anything over a 2 you should be very afraid my friend. Forget about the house it's insured. What is your life worth. Please get out of Dodge now.

[2Labs]

Thanks everyone for the tips and advice. Wayne M, I do like the idea of the corrugated panels, and am putting those near the top of my list for things to buy and keep around the property.

As we're about 35 miles inland, and live near the top of a hill, so we won't have any issues with storm surge, and aside from large volumes of water that will be coming down and running around us, we should be ok as far as any flooding is concerned. I did patch up a foundation crack from both the inside and outside in early spring, and we've been dry inside the lower level since then - *fingers crossed* that we stay that way throughout this storm. Our town did have some historic 100 year floods in the spring where some of the local rivers crested, but we did stay dry during those as well.

I've been monitoring the track of the storm since I originally posted this, and the hurricane has gone from slicing through our backyard, to moving its track east about 35 miles away, then today it has started heading back our way. About an hour ago it was tracking a few miles to the east of us, right through our town, and as of now, it's moved about 10 miles to the west - about 3 miles behind and to the west of us - placing us on the eastern, heavier winds side.

I've spent the last 24 hours getting us and the house ready. Clearing and moving all outdoor items - furniture, lawn art, anything loose outside and have moved it to storage away from the house. We have three 40' shipping containers at the back of our yard that we use for storage and a tool shed/workshop, so a lot of items made it into, or between the containers. Broke out the chain saw to get it started, took down some limbs that were questionable and have nestled the motorhome and cars up against the side of the house that has some partial hill coverage.

It looks like the winds are dropping as it makes landfall, so hopefully by the time it hits us in CT the winds will have dropped some more. Aside from the personal devastation and destruction storms like this bring, I've always been in awe of Mother Nature and the power that she wields. We've been through some big storms before - Hurricane's Gloria and Bob, as well as some devastating snow storms in all the years that I have lived in CT and the Northeast, so we know what to prepare for.

The cars and motorhome are full of fuel, propane and water, flashlights are charged, extension cords for generator power when (not if) it goes out ... now we're just watching and waiting. The current trajectory has it hitting Ct somewhere near 2am. It should be a fun and interesting night.

[salvagediver]

Looks like you are on the wrong side of the storm, the so called "more dangerous semi-circle" - can you bug-out and fight another day?

Wind increases its force upon a solid object with the square of the velocity. A wind that doubles its speed increases its force four times. A 60-mph wind exerts 15 pounds per square foot pressure; a 125-mph wind exerts 78 pounds.

Fleet Admiral Nimitz stated in 1944: "The time for taking all measures for a ship's safety is while still able to do so." Here's a good link (I think) and GOOD LUCK!:

Track Hurricane Irene / Stormpulse / Hurricanes, severe weather, tracking, mapping

[2Labs]

Yeah, we're pretty much hunkered down here for the night. At this point, it would take two hours or more to move the rig, hitch up the car, pack up the 2 Labs and pickup 4 more family members and 2 more dogs that are 1/2 mile down the road.

That would put us at about 10pm or later, and at that point we'd be in the start of the heavy rains trying to outrun the storm headed north and west *somewhere*. We do have a small house about 3 blocks from Narragansett Bay in RI, but we would have to travel up Rt 95 on the coastline, so that location is actually in a worse spot than here.

We're on the state and town CodeRed alert lists and our neighbor on the other side of our ~9 acre lot is one of the town's firehouses. There have been no evacuation warnings or recommendations from town officials, and I am sure they are watching the storms track even more than I am. Not that town officials are the all-knowing guru's, but it has been relatively quiet here. My brother, who lives down the road, is an EMT on the shoreline in Westport - already gone for 24+ hours, sister-in-law an ER Doctor, also already gone ... if there were even any inside evacuation warnings, we would have known by now.

Of course all of this means nothing to Hurricane Irene and her power and if anything drastically changes, and we don't feel safe here, we can hightail it across the yard to the firehouse ... or jump in the VW Tiguan and head to the High School or other shelter.

Again, thanks everyone for the suggestions. We're not taking this storm lightly, but do feel that we've taken good precautions to ride it out here - as all the neighbors we have talked to are doing.

I'm sure we'll be firing up the Verizon MiFi's later in the overnight hours for internet access, as the storm comes through, I'm sure I'll be updating here and there.

Time to turn on the Bristol Night race, make some dinner and see what Irene has for us.

[salvagediver]

2Labs,

All ya'll Yankees doin' OK up dere?

Power is flowing again, birds are singing and the sun is shining and we've moved out of our RV. Here's hoping Irene continues to loose strength.

We lost a few folks down here, in one very sad situation an 11 yr old lad was killed when a tree fell on his apartment house. Take care!!!!!!!!!!!

[BCooke]

Windy here right now. Have to go to work to remove fallen trees.

[SHADETREE]

We live on the eastern shore of md. Last night was scary. Today the wind is really blowing gusts are well over 60 to 80 mph some say over 100 i thought last night was bad. I've never been through any thing like this trees down every where roads are flooded . One fatality in our county. Corn fields are laid down. I'll be glad when its done. Still have many more hrs left till its over.

[Voyager35L]

Anyone out there leave Cape May NJ Parks when mandated? I am 65 miles north and the storm was barely noticeable, just rain.

[2Labs]

Well we made it through Irene relatively unscathed, although many of our other town residents that are not as highly elevated as us didn't fare nearly as well. There is a fair amount of flooding in our town. As to be expected, we have a few downed trees in the yard - some of which are still falling today with the high winds that we are still experiencing.

I stayed up until about 7:30 am, until I ended up crashing on the couch. We had some good amounts of rain that have caused a few issues here at the homestead, but the winds weren't that bad. We have a small weather station here and had sustained winds through most of the night in the 10-16MPH range, with a high of 25.7MPH. Not too bad given the original strength of this storm, but as we're ~35 miles inland, the winds did die down as the storm approached us.

I've got a bit more cleanup and repairs to do tomorrow, and will venture out in the afternoon. We didn't have to go anywhere today, so I figured we'd just stay at home and let the power and cleanup crews do their work with one less car on the road.

[2Labs]

Wow ... there was a LOT more destruction and water damage in our town just below us. We live up on a hill, and all roads leading to us were, or are still covered with downed trees.

I ventured out today for a bit and also found a video that someone in town made ... truely destructive water damage to residents that just recovered from, or are still rebuilding from the heavy flooding damage in the spring.

The video and more info is in my latest blog post Our Hurricane Irene Damage | Our RV Journey

and this direct YouTube link Aftermath of Irene in Southbury, CT - YouTube

[JJH3rd]

Thanks for the update. I'm happy that you guys came through OK.