mattbutt

Just was interested in anyone's experiences of the hurricane so far? We are getting a little windy up here in NJ but nothing more than a mild gale at the moment and dont expect it to get any worse.

How is everyone else?

Patrick

Isabel blew through here with 70 mph winds and a whole bunch of rain but apart from some of my neighbors siding and whole bunch of trees and vegitation uprooted everything is fine.

Because it was a cat 2 we decided to stay and it wasn't half as bad as we thought it would be, we didn't lose water or power (for too long) (mainly because our power lines are buried, the next town up lost power for a few hours when a tree took down there overhead power line!

Its almost 1pm the day after and most people have taken there boarding down and the deck furniture is back on the decks. Apart from the huge palm tree laying at the side of the road everything looks normal - and its back in 90's

Patrick

suebo

Well better late than never. I just got my power back a couple of hours ago. I has been out since 6pm Thursday and got it back Sunday 3.15pm - had a bet with hubby as to when it would come on and I predicted 3pm Sunday afternoon, so it was uncanningly close.
We live about 10 minutes north of Baltimore and slept through the whole thing- flaked at 10.30pm. Aparently all the neighbors were up at 1am listening to all the clanging and banging and draining their basements out so they wouldn't flood. That was our big mistake, as we have never been through this before,we did not even think about the sump pump going off with the power. Got up the next morning - cat pooed on the carpet infront of me and got a whack for doing it (I felt so guilty afterwards) - strange for my cat, never done that before. Phone rings, go check your basement says our friend, sure enough there is the cat box floating in the corner. Neighbors get a generator and thankfully pump the basement out for us. No major damage, just a few claims on insurance. I really feel sorry for the people on wells, thay can not even flush the bogger!! :scared:
Been BBQing everything in sight before it goes off, got all the food on ice, had to clean the fridge out today - what a waste of food. ramble ramble.
Back to the storm, Inner Harbor Baltimore was completely underwater, they say that all you could see was the tops of cars and parking metres. WTC (2metres above the harbor) was flooded. I haven't seen too much about it as no TV for so long.

Other than not having any power and a flooded basement, I guess we were pretty lucky. I am glad I was not in NC or VA. Hope you are all okay down there.
Cheers

mattbutt

Couldnt belive we had power outages up here when I got into work in the morning. There was seriously nothing more than a minor gale. I presume it must be because of the over head power lines.

Suebo - Try teaching the cat to swim, incase the basement floods again!

ladyofthelake

So sorry to hear your basement problems Sue.
Hope things can be cleared up and resolved soon, and life gets back to normal quickly for you.
It's truly shocking the amount of damage and loss of live that storm caused and over such a large area too. My condolences go out to the families who lost a loved one in the storm.

Emm

We did OK here too, the most exciting occurence was the appearance of the fire brigade who closed off our road to traffic (there were still lots of cars driving through the storm) due to a live power cable across the road.

Other than that the kids had 2 extra days off school and there was quite a lot of mess to clear up off the gardens in the morning.

Like Patrick, we had a beautifully sunny day on Friday and everyone was very relieved that Isobel didn't pack the punch we were expecting.

Emm.

suebo

Don't think the cat will ever learn how to swim
Thanks LOTL, the basement is cleared out now, we got towel after towel to soak up the excess and there are just a couple of puddles left.
I think we had a few casualties in MD. One stupid stupid man decided to go fishing off the rocks right in the middle of it all, I mean did he really expect to survive. Had to feel sorry for one family with small child, but this was stupidity again. They put the generator in the basement and the three of them were killed from Carbon Monoxide poisoning.
Cheers

robclews

Just got power and phone back, out since Thursday 6pm came on today Monday 4pm. Had no water as we have a well and the pump is electric, fortunately we have a generator that allows the frrezers to stay frozen.

Washed in the swimming pool for the last few days and doused with buckets of cold water to keep clean. Eaten out every day and survived pretty well. Got to get the chainsaw out as we lost about 5 trees, and now......i'm off for a gorgeous hot shower.

Rob

suebo

Geez Rob, I thought I had it bad, without power for 3 days and you had to go for 4. Those cold showers are a killer (either with a bucket or shower). Enjoy your hot shower, I still remember mine yesterday, oh it was bliss.
What you doing eating out, didn't you have any food to cook on the BBQ before it spoiled?? We didn't eat out at all, just went to starbucks a couple of times for the morning fix (water took too long on BBQ, got fed up).

Well good to see you are back with power and on line.
Cheers

robclews

Sue,

We used the BBQ quite a lot but sometimes it was nice to eat out so we could use the restrooms and turn the taps on and actually have water come out, and hot as well !!! Fortunately we have a generator of limited size, so we could power the two freezers here but thats about all we could do, so thankfully we lost no food.

Oh god that shower yesterday was the best one i think i've ever had, didn't want to get out it was heaven.

Rob