Here Comes Irene: Flood Prep & Rain Expectations

[Jimmy Snyder]

Below is a link to some snapshots I took this morning in town.
https://picasaweb.google.com/jsnyder527/Irene#"

 

[Astronuc]

The Trenton railroad station is flooded after the nearby Assunpink Creek rose to record levels and overflowed its banks, sending a torrent of water flowing through residential streets to the Delaware River.

SEPTA buses, trains and trolleys are operating, but service is suspended on the Cynwyd, Paoli/Thorndale, Norristown, and Trenton lines because of residual storm-related problems.

N.J. Transit rail service remains suspended until further notice, except on the Atlantic City Rail Line, and bus and light rail lines are running on a modified schedule, the agency says.

Amtrak says its trains are operating between Philadelphia and Washington but not between Philadelphia and Boston.

A different article - Philadelphia copes with outages, flooding after Irene
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/128571183.html

Much further north, the Mohawk River in upstate NY, west of Albany/Schenectady may reach record flood levels. That is 100 - 150 miles N/NNW of NY City.

 

[lisab]

Below is a link to some snapshots I took this morning in town.
https://picasaweb.google.com/jsnyder527/Irene#"

Except for the water everywhere, it looks like a beautiful day. I hope you and your wife are reunited soon!

 

[Evo]

Below is a link to some snapshots I took this morning in town.
https://picasaweb.google.com/jsnyder527/Irene#"

That was great! I noticed that people had abandoned hope of even taking small boats to cross the great expanses of flood waters. I hope that someday you and your wife are reunited amid the chaos.

 

[wuliheron]

It took me about an hour to get to work this morning, when it normally takes 13 minutes. One of the major roads through the area was close due to flooding.

A colleague is trying to get to Washington DC, but flights were cancelled, Amtrak is not operating, and many highways (including Interstates) and roads are impassable, and others are congested.

Welcome to the future. With the greenhouse effect, industrialization, and overpopulation you can expect this to become a fairly regular occurrence. Already some of the worst flooding has occurred in known flood plains where people were warned not to build. Within fifty years the estimates are that i95 will require 18 lanes one way and you'll be able to drive from NY to Miami without ever leaving the city... weather permitting of course.

 

[Evo]

The midwest has been suffering from terrible floods all year, not nearly as bad as the great flood of 1993 when this part of the country was mostly under water, and of course, there are now houses were there were lakes back in 1993, people will never learn.

Many of the roads are prone to flooding and just about every street has major construction going on right now to add super drainage, makes it a nightmare to try to get anywhere though.

 

[wuliheron]

You'd think people would have gotten the message after New Orleans, but denial still lingers.

 

[Evo]

You'd think people would have gotten the message after New Orleans, but denial still lingers.

People have short memories once the mess is cleaned up.

 

[Astronuc]

I took a picture earlier of a house a few blocks from my office. The local creek was flowing out the window of the basement. There are many flooded homes. I'm going to go out again later, but I think there's probably a pile of debris blocking flow down stream of the creek, which winds its way through the town. Some parts are not easily accessible because of private properties.


A friend who lives near Chi M mentioned that central Connecticut got flooding. Some guy thought it would cool to canoe down main street in the rushing water. His canoe capsized and he was swept into the river. The retrieved his body down river.


Update: I've attached two images taken a couple of blocks from my office. The car in the driveway is on the south side of a creek/brook. The depth is about 10 feet or so from the rod surface. The water is up to bottom of the bridge deck. In the back ground is a floating oil tank, and a car repair shop that is underwater. Several car in the parking area were in 3+ feet of water.

The house in the second photo is on the north side of the creek. The water is backed up. The water is flowing out of the window, so there is more water behind the house trying to get to the creek.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

You'd think people would have gotten the message after New Orleans, but denial still lingers.

The people of my town have been in denial since 1677. The town was settled because of the crick. A dam and a mill race were soon built and thus yesterday's flooding became inevitable. I think the townspeople are ready admit that the past 330 years have been a huge mistake and relocate the whole shebang to the Gobi desert.

 

[turbo]

We lost power briefly several times during the day yesterday, probably due to switching at substations to cope with down power lines. This road is quite susceptible to outages, but somehow, we didn't lose power. The severe T-storms and micro-bursts of earlier in the summer might have taken down most of the weaker trees.

The state has localized road damage due to flooding, including roads that are washed out and in need of rebuilding, and we lost some bridges, too. Major rivers don't seem to be too much of a problem, but they will likely crest later after water arrives from headwaters in the mountains. All in all, quite a bit of damage from the rains. Irene was only a tropical depression when she hit, but still packed a bit of a punch.

 

[Q_Goest]

Pennsylvania consists of Philadelphia on one end, Pittsburgh on the other, and West Virginia in between. I'm just north of Allentown and power here has been out since Saturday night. PP&L Electric says they have tens of thousands of homes without power and it's been like,,, almost 2 days now.

Other than that, not much happened. Couple trees down...

I have a renewed disrespect for PP&L. Glad we didn't get a hurricane through here!

 

[FlexGunship]

Uh, no they don't! Maybe if you absolutely have to be outside, but you're still better off inside a building.

No responsible person would say that.

Uh, it was supposed to be ironic.

 

[wuliheron]

The people of my town have been in denial since 1677. The town was settled because of the crick. A dam and a mill race were soon built and thus yesterday's flooding became inevitable. I think the townspeople are ready admit that the past 330 years have been a huge mistake and relocate the whole shebang to the Gobi desert.

We have regular flooding where I live too, but no water is worse then too much. Eventually people raise their houses off the ground or move to higher ground. After the last hurricane we had an entire town raise their houses ten feet off the ground. Less then a block away I have a state owned marsh that during the hurricane came right up to my front door. The worst problems occur when the population explodes and unscrupulous land developers begin corrupting the political process.

 

[wuliheron]

People have short memories once the mess is cleaned up.

Its not just short memories, but greed and denial triumphing over sanity. Some have even suggested NY was hit because they recently legalized gay marriage and it was God's wrath. Remember, these are the same Americans that recently 60% of them suspected their president wasn't even a citizen and still believe in ghosts and creationism.

 

[Jack21222]

Damage report from a Baltimore suburb:

Power lines down in front of my next-door neighbor's house, as well as a few houses down and around the corner, crossing the street. A large tree fell across the road, taking out the power lines with it. The power lines being hit by the tree caused a domino-like chain reaction, and 4 poles are down. Cannot see what the tree landed on, but the closest pole is in splinters and smashed a mailbox.

We lost power at 3am Sunday morning, and we have not yet seen a utility truck. It might be a week before I get electricity back, and maybe even longer for Internet, because cable lines were run from that pole.

There were half a million people without power here in Maryland, so it's hard to guess when we might get service restored.

We have a gas generator to power my sister's hospital bed, the refrigerator, and a fan.

I'm posting from my phone, which I had to charge in my car.

For a "dud," this has been a serious disruption to my life.

 

[Astronuc]

I think we caught a bullet or grenade rather than a cannon ball or artillery shell. Irene has been pretty destructive in our area and further north.

West, north and east of us, there are several towns underwater. Some roads and bridges have been washed out, homes and businesses have been washed out or severely damaged.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/videos-show-upstate-york-vermont-irene-flooding-153510538.html

 

[turbo]

The scanner is still very busy today, as light winds topple trees out of saturated soil and they come in contact with power lines. Some of the smaller rivers locally (mostly fed from the western mountains) have experienced flood surges, at times over-topping nearby roads by 4-5 feet. Irene is getting in the "last word".

 

[dlgoff]

Oops. http://www.wjactv.com/video/29011644/index.html?source=CNN"

 

[lisab]

Oops. http://www.wjactv.com/video/29011644/index.html?source=CNN"

Just...wow. Wonder if they were just following the GPS.

 

[Evo]

I wonder if part of the problem with downed power lines there is because, you have your lines on poles.

Where I live there are no utility poles to be seen, everything is underground. Some of the rural and older areas around here still have poles.

 

[Jack21222]

Whenever power and Internet are restored, I'll post pictures in this thread of the downed poles on my street. The utility company just came by to assess the area. With any luck, I'll have power by tomorrow evening.

 

[Borek]

I wonder if part of the problem with downed power lines there is because, you have your lines on poles.

Where I live there are no utility poles to be seen, everything is underground. Some of the rural and older areas around here still have poles.

There are over 10 million Poles in US, which is apparently not enough to put power lines above ground in all states.

 

[turbo]

I wonder if part of the problem with downed power lines there is because, you have your lines on poles.

Where I live there are no utility poles to be seen, everything is underground. Some of the rural and older areas around here still have poles.

Maine is very rocky, ledg-ey (if that's a word) and rural. It would be prohibitively expensive to bury everything. We also have severe winter weather and rocks that migrate upward on ice-lenses every winter, which makes burying fiber-optics problematic because you can't possible trench the cables deeply enough to escape damage from such rocks.

If all utilities, data companies, phone companies got together to share the cost of burying cables and wires and fiber-optic bundles, rural counties like mine would still have all that crap draped between poles. It's just not cost-effective to bury everything. I was the IT manager for a large ophthalmic practice when a start-up data company wanted us to tie in as they connected Bangor, Waterville, Portland, etc via buried optical-fiber bundles. I asked for assurances regarding reliability, and their willingness to pay for us to revert to phone-based systems if their network failed. I was unable to obtain any such assurances, and the owners of the practice opted to stay with copper when they read my report.

 

[turbo]

There are over 10 million Poles in US, which is apparently not enough to put power lines above ground in all states.

 

[Astronuc]

I wonder if part of the problem with downed power lines there is because, you have your lines on poles.

Where I live there are no utility poles to be seen, everything is underground. Some of the rural and older areas around here still have poles.

We have a lot of utilities above ground. Newer, more recent, construction tends to put services underground.

 

[turbo]

We have a lot of utilities above ground. Newer, more recent, construction tends to put services underground.

At our last house, we were in a "modern" subdivision (30+ years) and the phone and electrical service were buried all through our neighborhood, but only from the street to the houses. Transformers were housed in buried vaults, and that set-up was not without its faults. Growing pains.

 

[dlgoff]

Transformers were housed in buried vaults, and that set-up was not without its faults. Growing pains.

Ever since I worked for a power utility, mentioning underground vaults with transformers brings back bad memories. Not good for workers when they are in there when a circuit shorts to ground.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

The Delaware river has just slightly overflowed its banks in Burlington, NJ. There are hundreds of trees and branches floating in the river making a kind of logjam island in the center. It's funny to watch the waterfowl treating it just like an island. There is more flooding in my town than I realized this morning. Even though my house is high and dry, most of the roads leading to it are flooded. The weather today is fine, you couldn't ask for better.

 

[Evo]

Maine is very rocky, ledg-ey (if that's a word) and rural. It would be prohibitively expensive to bury everything. We also have severe winter weather and rocks that migrate upward on ice-lenses every winter, which makes burying fiber-optics problematic because you can't possible trench the cables deeply enough to escape damage from such rocks.

If all utilities, data companies, phone companies got together to share the cost of burying cables and wires and fiber-optic bundles, rural counties like mine would still have all that crap draped between poles. It's just not cost-effective to bury everything. I was the IT manager for a large ophthalmic practice when a start-up data company wanted us to tie in as they connected Bangor, Waterville, Portland, etc via buried optical-fiber bundles. I asked for assurances regarding reliability, and their willingness to pay for us to revert to phone-based systems if their network failed. I was unable to obtain any such assurances, and the owners of the practice opted to stay with copper when they read my report.

You can run fiber optic on poles.

 

[turbo]

You can run fiber optic on poles.

We already do, but the comments about burying utilities are inapplicable to sparsely-populated regions in harsh climates.

 

[Evo]

We already do, but the comments about burying utilities are inapplicable to sparsely-populated regions in harsh climates.

My comment was about the problems with so many outages is that those areas have aerial wires, outages are to be expected any time there's a bit of wind or ice.

 

[turbo]

My comment was about the problems with so many outages is that those areas have aerial wires, outages are to be expected any time there's a bit of wind or ice.

I'm pretty sure that there are bean-counters at the power companies that balance the cost of overtime for storm repairs, calling in crews from adjacent states, provinces, etc vs the cost to harden those utilities by burying the transmission lines. It is a business decision. Consumers don't get to make those decisions. The Maine Public Utilities Commission (a toothless lackey of the utilities, IMO) and the utilities themselves make those decisions.

 

[rhody]

I have to say I agree with you Chi, I am not upset by this at all, whereas some people as you stated whip themselves into a frenzy. If this tropical storm, sits on top of us and churns then flooding could be a problem. I have a french drain system on the low side of my house, and it has survived a 4 inch rain dousing before. Granted, we had power, so the sump pump could function, as I remember, it wasn't for very long, if at all. All my drains are clear and attached at the moment. My major concern is losing power for an extended period, that may cause a problem, other than that, just bring everything inside, and take some pictures and video's. If the rollers get very big, I may take some wave video and post it. If they are not dramatic, I won't bother.

Rhody...

ACK ! I am back, 29 hours without power ! The storm did not dump much rain, well to the west of us. But the winds were in the 80's, gusts, I where I live. I went outside about 1 pm on Sunday and had to lean into it. I know what 80 mph feels like because I do it (every once in awhile, cough cough... on my beast of a bike). We were lucky because if the rain had buried us we would be a week without power, because of ten times the number of trees being down. I took some HD video if the front yard, tree's bending in big wind gusts and got sand blasted at the beach taking more DD video. I will post in the next couple of days, and provide a link.

For sure a 2000 watt gas generator will be on my short term list, if we had gotten 10 or more inches of rain, my basement would have flooded for sure. My backup plan was to put bailing buckets near the sump hole, great plan, huh ?

The generator would allow us to keep the pump, fridge and one TV running, perhaps the modem and router and one laptop as well.

We dodged a bullet. BTW the island I live on was knocked out by one of those huge towers that hold three high tension wires on each side, the deliver about 440,000 volts each, one of the insulators failed in the wind and dropped the high voltage line on the ground, causing it to FAIL !

The failure maybe lack of maintenance on the insulator's, can't be sure, but it knocked out about 40,000 people's power. There are coming back, one zone at a time. Both hurricane Bob and Gloria pummeled the same wires with 110 - 120 mph wind gusts, but those same insulators did not fail that time, hard to say for sure what caused it.

I was starting to have PF withdrawal, and I must say, it isn't pretty, anyway I am back.
Did anyone miss me ? Turbo ? I haven't read to the end of the thread yet so I apologize. I will after I post this.

Rhody...

 

[Astronuc]

My comment was about the problems with so many outages is that those areas have aerial wires, outages are to be expected any time there's a bit of wind or ice.

In the local city, many power lines are under the street, as is the case in NY City. Ocassionally there are shorts, or sections shutdown due to flooding.

The matter: Would Burying Power Lines Reduce Power Outages? is discussed here:
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/29/140042767/would-burying-power-lines-reduce-power-outages

Basically, it costs considerably more to bury power lines. One rule of thumb is a cost differential of $1 million/mi, or buried lines cost 10x overhead. And as for risk, it's trading one kind of risk for another.

In the Northeast, much of the ground is rock, so burying utilites is problematic, especially where the limited earthen ground is subject to flooding.



On my way home from work, I stopped in the local neighborhoods to see some of the flooding, which had subsided a little. It's still a problem for homeowners along the creek that had overflowed. The water was down a few inches but still high enough to flood basements. I could also smell fuel - probably gasoline and diesel fuel.

And I was treated to an example of 'stupidity being trumped by ineptitude'. Some idiot swiped a plastic garbage container from a city park and attempted to set off down the rushing creek! He failed when the can tipped sideways and he ended up in the water, while still hangin to a fence. The container floated off down the creek. Had he succeeded in getting into the creek proper, he likely would have drowned, or otherwise been bashed on the rocks of the waterfall further downstream.

 

[rhody]

Chain-saw + Evo = gruesome death.

I read what I missed. Just caught up on a few gems in the thread, like this one...

Nice Turbo... funny, I was thinking the same thing when the storm was knocking them down. We must think alike...

Rhody...

 

[rhody]

A picture a member drew of me sawing a limb off of a tree.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=576571&postcount=72

That's a beauty Evo. We all know you wouldn't do that, but other horrendous side effects could befall you. The movie "The Final Destination XX" comes to mind.

Rhody...

 

[DoggerDan]

Most utilities are underground, here, including fiber. Then again, I live in Colorado.

I don't know why people keep building their houses on the sand, particularly sandy spits known to shift significantly over time. One woman in a video said, "You see people who have built their lifetime dream and then lose it."

Oh, wah. Next time build your house somewhere other than a high-risk hurricane and flood zone. Either that or build it to withstand the elements.

Video: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/videos-show-upstate-york-vermont-irene-flooding-153510538.html

 

[Astronuc]

I don't know why people keep building their houses on the sand, particularly sandy spits known to shift significantly over time. One woman in a video said, "You see people who have built their lifetime dream and then lose it."

I caught that same comment. It just boggles my mind that people build multi-million dollar dwellings only 15 to 20 feet above mean sea level on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, where one can expect to have a major hurricane during a given 30 year period, or less in some cases.

On the other hand, most people cannot afford to buy a house that could withstand a hurricane or tornado.

There were very few homes build to withstand hurricane conditions on Bolivar peninsula. They got slammed during September 2008.
http://geology.com/usgs/hurricane-ike-pictures.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike

I do not want to be in the path a hurricane like Andrew or Ike.

 

[lisab]

ACK ! I am back, 29 hours without power ! The storm did not dump much rain, well to the west of us. But the winds were in the 80's, gusts, I where I live. I went outside about 1 pm on Sunday and had to lean into it. I know what 80 mph feels like because I do it (every once in awhile, cough cough... on my beast of a bike). We were lucky because if the rain had buried us we would be a week without power, because of ten times the number of trees being down. I took some HD video if the front yard, tree's bending in big wind gusts and got sand blasted at the beach taking more DD video. I will post in the next couple of days, and provide a link.

For sure a 2000 watt gas generator will be on my short term list, if we had gotten 10 or more inches of rain, my basement would have flooded for sure. My backup plan was to put bailing buckets near the sump hole, great plan, huh ?

The generator would allow us to keep the pump, fridge and one TV running, perhaps the modem and router and one laptop as well.

We dodged a bullet. BTW the island I live on was knocked out by one of those huge towers that hold three high tension wires on each side, the deliver about 440,000 volts each, one of the insulators failed in the wind and dropped the high voltage line on the ground, causing it to FAIL !

The failure maybe lack of maintenance on the insulator's, can't be sure, but it knocked out about 40,000 people's power. There are coming back, one zone at a time. Both hurricane Bob and Gloria pummeled the same wires with 110 - 120 mph wind gusts, but those same insulators did not fail that time, hard to say for sure what caused it.

I was starting to have PF withdrawal, and I must say, it isn't pretty, anyway I am back.
Did anyone miss me ? Turbo ? I haven't read to the end of the thread yet so I apologize. I will after I post this.

Rhody...

Welcome back, Rhody !

 

[rhody]

Welcome back, Rhody !

Thanks Lisa, at least somebody noticed, sniff sniff... hehe... just kidding.
I don't care to repeat that experience ever again.

I brought my hot peppers inside, they did fine, back in the sun tomorrow, waiting for the lot to turn red. May try some seeds on large not ripe ones to see how hot they are. Any more takers on seeds ? I will have a ton of them to mail to PF'ers only, Astro, want some more ?

Rhody...

 

[OmCheeto]

Thanks for the advice. I'm not going out to buy any pumps just now nor tomorrow either. The solutions provided are overkill for my situation anyway. Since water started coming in I only got a gallon or so. The wet vac can keep up with it as long as I stay awake. Just now it isn't raining and there hasn't been any measurable water come in. So my floor is damp, but no puddled water anywhere. This will change of course, but I'm not expecting more than a gallon or two per hour. This is the first hurricane I've experienced in this house so I can't say for sure.

A gallon! I had a gallon leaking into my boat about every 15 minutes yesterday.

I'm keeping my system.

Here's my next idea for your problem...

 

[rhody]

Went to local Stop and Shop to pick up items for dinner yesterday. They got power back at 1 pm, this was around 6 pm or so. They were putting all the refrigerated/frozen food back on the shelves. They had an 18 wheel truck with containers to hold it, and another 18 wheel refrigerated truck with new stuff and dry ice to boot. The manager who answered a product question had been at work 36 hours straight to make sure everything was taken care of and no food was lost. I would say she went way above and beyond the call of duty to make sure they stores losses were kept to a minimum. Other food stores only had dry foods, etc... so I assume that meant they had to throw their refrigerated/frozen food out. Kudo's to the resourceful manager at our local market.

Rhody...

 

[Norman]

We came back to find a lot of debris in our yard and only 2 downed branches. Neighbors said we lost power for about 30 hours or so, but it was back on by the time we got home yesterday late afternoon. It appears that the outage was not directly linked to the storm as it was a motorist hitting a pole which caused the outage by us.

The storm surge plus high tide created at flood of about 2 feet 10 inches in my garage - which was about 6 inches lower than the 2009 Nor'easter. That was good news - means no water in our first floor. We did however get flooding in our cellar where the furnace is - so that will have to be replaced - not a huge worry in southeastern Virginia in August.

All the reports and data I have seen seem to indicate that Irene was not a hurricane once it hit us near Virginia Beach and Norfolk. Has anyone else seen any data? My neighbors were all in agreement that the winds were quite minimal and seemed to be less than the 2009 Nor'easter and much less than Isabel.

That is not to minimize the damage, the rain and flooding were very bad. As we were driving back from the Shenandoah area, we saw many more downed trees in Richmond/Williamsburg than in Norfolk/Virginia Beach area.

 

[Astronuc]

We came back to find a lot of debris in our yard and only 2 downed branches. Neighbors said we lost power for about 30 hours or so, but it was back on by the time we got home yesterday late afternoon. It appears that the outage was not directly linked to the storm as it was a motorist hitting a pole which caused the outage by us.

The storm surge plus high tide created at flood of about 2 feet 10 inches in my garage - which was about 6 inches lower than the 2009 Nor'easter. That was good news - means no water in our first floor. We did however get flooding in our cellar where the furnace is - so that will have to be replaced - not a huge worry in southeastern Virginia in August.

All the reports and data I have seen seem to indicate that Irene was not a hurricane once it hit us near Virginia Beach and Norfolk. Has anyone else seen any data? My neighbors were all in agreement that the winds were quite minimal and seemed to be less than the 2009 Nor'easter and much less than Isabel.

That is not to minimize the damage, the rain and flooding were very bad. As we were driving back from the Shenandoah area, we saw many more downed trees in Richmond/Williamsburg than in Norfolk/Virginia Beach area.

If one checks the archive for IRENE, it was still classified as a hurricane as is approached NJ.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2011/IRENE.shtml?
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2011/al09/al092011.public_a.031.shtml?

BULLETIN
HURRICANE IRENE INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER  31A
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL       AL092011
200 AM EDT SUN AUG 28 2011
 
...IRENE MOVING UP THE MID-ATLANTIC COAST...WATER LEVELS RISING FROM
MARYLAND TO NEW YORK...
 
 
SUMMARY OF 200 AM EDT...0600 UTC...INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...38.1N 75.0W
ABOUT 15 MI...25 KM SSE OF OCEAN CITY MARYLAND
ABOUT 195 MI...315 KM SSW OF NEW YORK CITY
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...80 MPH...130 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 20 DEGREES AT 17 MPH...28 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...958 MB...28.29 INCHES

BTW - Tropical Depression 12 has evolved into Tropical Storm Katia and is expected to develop into a hurricane during the next 5 days. It may be a Cat 2 by the time is passes Puerto Rico.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2011/KATIA.shtml?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

My neighbors were all in agreement that the winds were quite minimal and seemed to be less than the 2009 Nor'easter and much less than Isabel.

In my neighborhood of South Jersey it was close to a dead calm during most of the hurricane. I can't explain that.

 

[rhody]

In my neighborhood of South Jersey it was close to a dead calm during most of the hurricane. I can't explain that.

Jimmy,

Most likely because of the bulk of the hurricane was west of you ?
We got mostly wind on Sunday during the day, and the bulk of the rain we did get came in Saturday evening.

Rhody...

 

[Norman]

If one checks the archive for IRENE, it was still classified as a hurricane as is approached NJ.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2011/IRENE.shtml?
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2011/al09/al092011.public_a.031.shtml?

BULLETIN
HURRICANE IRENE INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER  31A
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL       AL092011
200 AM EDT SUN AUG 28 2011
 
...IRENE MOVING UP THE MID-ATLANTIC COAST...WATER LEVELS RISING FROM
MARYLAND TO NEW YORK...
 
 
SUMMARY OF 200 AM EDT...0600 UTC...INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...38.1N 75.0W
ABOUT 15 MI...25 KM SSE OF OCEAN CITY MARYLAND
ABOUT 195 MI...315 KM SSW OF NEW YORK CITY
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...80 MPH...130 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 20 DEGREES AT 17 MPH...28 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...958 MB...28.29 INCHES

BTW - Tropical Depression 12 has evolved into Tropical Storm Katia and is expected to develop into a hurricane during the next 5 days. It may be a Cat 2 by the time is passes Puerto Rico.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2011/KATIA.shtml?

Astronuc,

I am aware of what the NHC has said, but if you look at the data from the weather stations - specifically Langley Air Force Base (near NASA Langley) and the Virginia Beach and Norfolk stations, they never registered sustained winds above 60 mph - gusts were typically constrained to less than 70 mph.

You can see an example here: http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/KLFI/2011/8/27/DailyHistory.html

EDIT:
I finally found the link I was looking for: http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-did-irene-stop-being-hurricane.html - in this post, Cliff Mass (a professor of Atmospheric Sciences at University of Washington) discusses the data from the buoys and stations in NC. I was specifically interested in Virginia and the data near my house when I started looking. But his argument still holds for my area as we were after landfall.

My guess is that it may have to deal with how windspeeds are measured/modeled for hurricanes and how they extrapolate to the max readings.

 

[wuliheron]

The storm surge plus high tide created at flood of about 2 feet 10 inches in my garage - which was about 6 inches lower than the 2009 Nor'easter. That was good news - means no water in our first floor. We did however get flooding in our cellar where the furnace is - so that will have to be replaced - not a huge worry in southeastern Virginia in August.

All the reports and data I have seen seem to indicate that Irene was not a hurricane once it hit us near Virginia Beach and Norfolk. Has anyone else seen any data? My neighbors were all in agreement that the winds were quite minimal and seemed to be less than the 2009 Nor'easter and much less than Isabel.

That is not to minimize the damage, the rain and flooding were very bad. As we were driving back from the Shenandoah area, we saw many more downed trees in Richmond/Williamsburg than in Norfolk/Virginia Beach area.

I thought the only cellars left in southeastern Virginia these days were old root cellars.

Before my power went out in Chesapeake we had sustained winds of 85mph and gusts over 100mph. That's right up there on the boarder between tropical storm and hurricane strength. It spawned at least two hurricanes in NC and one in Sandbridge that severely damaged an entire block of houses. The last Nor'easter did seem to have higher peak winds, but I don't know if I could compare the two for overall strength.

Isabel was definitely worse then both those storms, but it also hit after a drought when the tree roots were weak. Usually you expect these things to knock over the dead trees and smaller ones, but it knocked over all the largest and healthiest trees!

 

[Norman]

I thought the only cellars left in southeastern Virginia these days were old root cellars.

Before my power went out in Chesapeake we had sustained winds of 85mph and gusts over 100mph. That's right up there on the boarder between tropical storm and hurricane strength. It spawned at least two hurricanes in NC and one in Sandbridge that severely damaged an entire block of houses. The last Nor'easter did seem to have higher peak winds, but I don't know if I could compare the two for overall strength.

Isabel was definitely worse then both those storms, but it also hit after a drought when the tree roots were weak. Usually you expect these things to knock over the dead trees and smaller ones, but it knocked over all the largest and healthiest trees!

Yeah, I didn't know that the furnace was in the cellar when we rented this place. But we were right on the Chesapeake and I love living on the water - except when we get hit by hurricanes/tropical storms/nor'easters.

I heard about the tornadoes (I assume you meant torndado when you said hurricane above) - that just seems like pouring salt on the wound - nasty storms around here.

Regarding the overall strength - I cannot attest to it as I ran for the hills - but my neighbors were all in agreement that this was nothing compared to Isabel. But they felt it was fairly quick compared to the Nor'easter - which was a multiday event for us - we had 3 tides that produced 2+ feet of water around my house.

I am surprised by your estimates of the wind, but I cannot check the data since NAS Oceana's weather station went down before the storm - that is the nearest station for checking wind speeds I believe.