Here Comes Irene: Flood Prep & Rain Expectations

[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.

 

[rhody]

I had a friend pass this http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2011/08/hurricane-irene/100138/" on, so I thought I would share it, some amazing pictures from all up and down the east coast. Puts things in perspective, doesn't it ? I feel for those who are cut off because the roads are out in VT and NY. They have no way to get help, at least at the moment. The good news, if there is any in this situation, I can't speak for NY, but I can Vermont, those folks help their neighbors and are pretty good at coming up with creative solutions in difficult circumstances. This is mostly from dealing with winter blizzards over the past hundred years or so. I have been told there were times as a small child of being trapped in our homes for a week because of a blizzard. Sounds like time to call out the Army Corps of Engineers and National Guard to the most isolated and hard hit areas.

Rhody...

 

[wuliheron]

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.

Virginia also has a local phenomena known as a "cluster storm" that resembles a tornado. The US in general has more then its share of violent weather and Virginia is actually one of the milder places. The West Virginia mountains protect us from the worst of the winter storms, and the barrier islands from the summer ones. Central Virginia is even rated 2nd in the nation for temperate weather with the longest springs and falls you'll find anywhere.

 

[rhody]

Thankfully, it seems that someone in state Government is on the ball in Vermont,

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44324289/ns/weather/?google_editors_picks=true"

NEWFANE, Vt. — Vermont on Tuesday began airlifting food and water to a dozen towns cut off by Irene, while New Jersey saw new flood evacuations, and across the East Coast power outages, while down by half, impacted millions.

At the Killington ski resort in Vermont, some 400 people were stranded due to road damage, and part of a lodge had collapsed in the earlier rain and flooding, NBC affiliate WPTZ-TV reported Tuesday. Another news link, here: http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110830/NEWS07/108300301/From-Waterbury-Wilmington-Vermonters-shocked-by-Irene-s-destruction?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE"

Rhody...

P.S. Update from someone who lives near there, they claim it is FEMA who is making the airlift possible. I hope they bring bulldozers and other heavy equipment as well. They are going to need it.

 

[turbo]

Wrong place to be when storm-waters surge.

http://www.chron.com/news/article/Trucker-s-vehicle-stuck-between-lost-Maine-bridges-2147125.php

 

[rhody]

Eh, I don't believe it. Is your source NWS ? Hard to believe it can hit colder water and temps and still gain strength. I hope I don't have to eat my words. Knock on wood, Flying port-a-potties, eh Evo, hmm... there aren't any in my neighborhood so I don't need to worry about that.

I did do one important thing though, brought in my three ghost pepper plants with over 50 peppers, some near being ripe, the seem to turn yellow before turning red. Will post some pictures tomorrow.

Rhody... See some of you in chat. No winds here yet though.

P.S. NWS says winds in the mid 60's with gusts no more than 71 mph in the am tomorrow, tropical storm, not even a Cat 1. The uninformed and sensationalist media drive me crazy, it's all about ratings and not facts.

After reading my post the other day, I must admit after reading post Irene news reports and looking at hundreds of pictures of the damage, I was wrong , this sucker did a lot of damage in unexpected ways to unsuspecting states, like Vermont for instance, not to mention the midatlantic states, and Connecticut and New Jersey. What a mess.

Rhody...

 

[Evo]

After reading my post the other day, I must admit after reading post Irene news reports and looking at hundreds of pictures of the damage, I was wrong , this sucker did a lot of damage in unexpected ways to unsuspecting states, like Vermont for instance, not to mention the midatlantic states, and Connecticut and New Jersey. What a mess.

Rhody...

Vermont had some terrible roads and bridges that were literally falling apart, it's no wonder even a storm this small caused so much trouble. I used to drive from Saratoga Springs, NY to Bennington, VT at least once a week, a bridge we had to cross was in such bad shape that only one car was allowed to cross at a time, they made it a single lane and you could not get onto the bridge until the other car was off of the bridge, and the speed limit was 20MPH, maybe it was 10mph. I was terrified every time I had to cross it, but going around it would have added an extra hour to my drive. During bad weather, I did go the long way.

 

[turbo]

My barber cut my hair today. I was about her first customer after she got her license. It has been at least 30 years. Anyway the reason for the Irene link is: She is still without power, though water-damage around here was minimal. People on hilly/rural roads are about the last to get any renewed power. No power to a rural road with 4-5 families with wells and cattle pumps? We are too busy and we'll get to you. The business comes down to "how many paying customers can we get back, and how fast?"

Isn't there anybody at the utility who is smart enough to realize that they ought to be grabbing the low-hanging fruit (easy safety-resets, by employees in their ubiquitous pickups, with hot-sticks) etc at least to make nice with people who might live out in the woods, but might be influential in town governments?

 

[Evo]

My barber cut my hair today. I was about her first customer after she got her license.

She is still without power, though water-damage around here was minimal. People on hilly/rural roads are about the last to get any renewed power.

Funny, during bad ice storms and blizzards, (back when I lived in a rural area) I'd call in an outage from my home phone and get a recording that they expected restoral in 2 weeks, not even an option to speak to a real person.

Then I called from one of my AT&T home office lines (I worked for AT&T out of my house), reached a special task force person for critical services on the first ring, time to repair...3 hours. My neighbors never knew how they got service back so quickly. I think the longest were were out was when the poles had to be physically replaced, that took a few days, but still not the weeks we were told as resididential customers.

 

[rhody]

Being without internet is having an effect, A friend of ours showed up, unannounced so she could check her e-mail on her laptop.
She is having internet withdrawal, specifically, e-mail and Face Plant. Amazing, those little hits of dopamine on her brain made her stop by. And her left eye was twitching from the stress of not getting her fix.

Rhody...

 

[Redbelly98]

Here is an informative link, it is a map of recent U.S. rainfall at the NOAA site.

Click the link, check "Last 5 Days" (or whatever period would cover from last Friday), and zoom around the east coast.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge2/RFC_Precip/

Note the section of NC receiving 20+ inches (50+ cm), and the red band running northward indicating 6-10 inches (15-25 cm) of rain.

 

[Astronuc]

The Life of Hurricane Irene from Caribbean to Canada
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=108951491

 

[Astronuc]

Here is an informative link, it is a map of recent U.S. rainfall at the NOAA site.

Click the link, check "Last 5 Days" (or whatever period would cover from last Friday), and zoom around the east coast.

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ridge2/RFC_Precip/

Note the section of NC receiving 20+ inches (50+ cm), and the red band running northward indicating 6-10 inches (15-25 cm) of rain.

We're in the 8-10 inch band since Friday, and in the 14-16 inch band for the last 30 days. We've had 16-18 inches in 3 days before - in two consecutive weekends - which is which we got the basement flood prevention system.

It's very strange to see cool dry sunny days. One can smell a musty odor in the air, especially when driving through areas that flooded.

 

[rhody]

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20110830/NEWS02/110830022/Guard-choppers-from-Illinois-assist-Vermont-recovery-effort-?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE%7Cs"

These will help, I hope they have a supply of of jet grade diesel fuel onhand (this can be airlifted in if needed as well). The Blackhawk's can lift about 4.5 tons of supplies. The Chinooks (D version) can haul about 13 tons of supplies. This should help in the short term.

Vermont had some terrible roads and bridges that were literally falling apart, it's no wonder even a storm this small caused so much trouble. I used to drive from Saratoga Springs, NY to Bennington, VT at least once a week, a bridge we had to cross was in such bad shape that only one car was allowed to cross at a time, they made it a single lane and you could not get onto the bridge until the other car was off of the bridge, and the speed limit was 20MPH, maybe it was 10mph. I was terrified every time I had to cross it, but going around it would have added an extra hour to my drive. During bad weather, I did go the long way.

I agree Evo that some of the bridge's, covered ones at least should long since have been replaced, but river erosion that caused adjacent roads to collapse, nothing could have been done to prevent this from happening.

Rhody...

 

[Astronuc]

The storm was not small by any means. It was a Cat 1 by the time it not to NJ and quickly decreased to a tropical storm, but it dumped a lot of rain in Pa, NY, CT, VT. Some areas have had the worst flooding on record. VT and upstate NY got is particular bad in terms of rainfall, and some places were already saturated from rains earlier in the week or previous weeks.

Windham Wiped Out- Lance Wheeler Video



Some farmers have lost all of their crops due to flooding. Even if they could harvest, they can't sell it because it is considered contaminated. And some land is contaminated with fuel and sewage.

We've had more rain (15-18 inches) in three days, but that was an isolated cell.

During the storm, most of our county got more than 6 inches, with one stretch getting 8-10 inches. We'd aslo had 2+ inches of rain during the Thursday and Friday before Irene rolled over us. Several counties N and W of us had similar widespread rainfall, and some areas go 10 to 16 inches of rain. Many areas in the Catskills are valleys, to all that rain ran off the mountains and down into the valleys, and basically took out whole towns.

 

[rhody]

Some more http://interactives.wwlp.com/photomojo/gallery/929/26/irene-aftermath-in-western-mass/irene-aftermath/" from my neck of the woods. Hard to believe, grew up in Western Mass.

Rhody...

 

[Astronuc]

At the moment, it looks like hurricane Katia is aimed at the Carolinas. It's track is a bit further north than Irene's. It's also possible Katia will become Cat 3.

But where will it go? We'll have a better idea next Wednesday.

 

[rhody]

At the moment, it looks like hurricane Katia is aimed at the Carolinas. It's track is a bit further north than Irene's. It's also possible Katia will become Cat 3.

But where will it go? We'll have a better idea next Wednesday.

ACK !

Rhody...

 

[Norman]

At the moment, it looks like hurricane Katia is aimed at the Carolinas. It's track is a bit further north than Irene's. It's also possible Katia will become Cat 3.

But where will it go? We'll have a better idea next Wednesday.

I think current forecasts are calling for the front that is over the great lakes region right now to swing southeast and be over the atlantic coast by Monday - this should hopefully push Katia up-up and away...

See here: http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/basicwx/day0-7loop.html

 

[Borek]

Some more http://interactives.wwlp.com/photomojo/gallery/929/26/irene-aftermath-in-western-mass/irene-aftermath/" from my neck of the woods.

Aqua Vista Campground - so true.

 

[rhody]

Going to pick up a Honda EU2000i generator after work. Whisper quiet, 1.1 gallon fuel tank, auto-idle fuel saver feature and built in 12 volt inverter that converts AC to DC then back to AC with smoothing software that produces smoothed AC power, safe for the most sensitive electronic gear. Runs about 5.5 hours at 1/2 load. This will ease my anxiety over a flooded basement (financially significant) and spoiled food (not so financially significant). I hope we never need it, but it will come in handle for things other than emergencies I am sure. Like camping trips, track days, etc...

Rhody...

P.S Just got it, it weighs 47 lbs and is about as big as eight toasters stacked in a rectangle, starts on one pull, if you stand 5 feet from it, you can hear someone talk normally, if you stand 20 feet away you can barely tell it is running at all, 53 db Amazing. The biggest worry with this little unit is being stolen. They are hot items for thieves.