I thought a thread should be started wishing everyone in hurricane Irene's path safety and good wishes to you and your families. I know the rain began more than 12 hours ago in some areas, but now with the eye of the storm heading closer and closer into land, I hope no one on the board sees any personal damage or loss. Please keep us updated for as long as you can and while you continue to have electricity. I will continue to send good thoughts out to everyone affected.

I'm just waiting for it to come by. I prepared on Tuesday (food, water, batteries, flashlights). I'm a pessimist in heart, so I always prepare for the worst. Good luck to everyone in its path.

I hope everyone stays safe!

Originally posted by Becky Rock I'm a pessimist in heart, so I always prepare for the worst.

I call that being smart! Hope it all goes okay, with no bad damage or lengthy power outages!

Originally posted by lborgia88

Originally posted by Becky Rock I'm a pessimist in heart, so I always prepare for the worst.

I call that being smart! Hope it all goes okay, with no bad damage or lengthy power outages!

I agree! If you are prepared for the worst that can happen, everything else will be easy. Hope the storm is over soon.

We had an old gas grill that was knocked over and damaged this past spring in a storm that we hadn't bothered to replace. I had just gotten a new propane tank for it. I made the hubby go out and get a new one Wed night, since we had the full tank, just in case. He came back with a nicer one that even has a side burner for pots and pans cooking. Wasn't in the budget, but I can skip the toll road for a while. It's 3:30 PM. We've had a few bands of light rain and some breezes, but nothing harsh yet. The local news says its going to start going down hill probably over the next hour.

Stay safe, Becky!

I think we're right on the border of the bad weather. 30 miles west of DC. DC is getting wind gusts 25-45 and heavy rain. We're still only getting a light rain, very little breeze. Actually, I'm a little concerned about the damage to the top of the Washington Monument from the earthquake. They sealed the cracks for now, but they say the higher you go, the strongers the winds are from the hurricane.

It's a Cat 1 which is pretty small for a hurricane/cyclone - however the wind will do damage - and I would say you will see more damage to the Washington Monument. From the maps, I think you are just on the edge, Becky, so you will get a lot of rain and a bit of wind - the rain tends to be further out thatn the wind. Because it's a Cat 1, the biggest threat will come from rain and storm surge - which is why the low lying areas and New York's subway is being closed. LOL - listen to me! Can you tell I live in a cyclone prone region??? Anyone who is in the path though - the bathroom is your friend. It's the strongest room in the house - so get some comfy cushions, matresses and blankets in there. Fill the bathtub with water and put a clean sheet over it (to protect the water from dirt, etc) as this will ensure you have drinking water.

Hello all, Willmington,NC got about 7.5 inches of rain. The offical highest wind gust was 66 mph. Lots of water damage. It was nice to find out that only 1/2 of Willmington lost power. So everyone can find power close. Nothing like a hot meal. Becky I wish you well. I hope your house doesn't flood. The offical measurement is for every 25 stories you go up, you add one catagory to the hurricane. The Washington Monument doesn't need the wind and rain. I found a cute story on the local Willmington news website. Hopefully this will give everyone a smile. WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) - Seventeen babies were born at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington as Hurricane Irene passed. But not 1 of them was named Irene. Hospital spokeswoman Carolyn Fisher says the hospital usually has about 10 births in 24 hours. The 17 babies were born in the 18 hours between 6 p.m. Friday and noon Saturday. Fisher also said about 40 children of hospital staff members stayed at the hospital Friday night on sleeping bags and air mattresses. She says the hospital routinely provides such care for children of staffers who have to work during a storm and need a safe place for their children. During Irene, several doctors played guitar for the kids. Fisher says the hospital never lost power. Be Well all.

We're starting to get heavier rain and some gusts, but nothing too serious. It had to happen once it got dark, of course. I think Irene is about the largest hurricane I've ever seen by the sheer size of it. It was stretched out clear from South Carolina to the Canadian border at one point. My son is disappointed. He wanted some action. I told him it wasn't over yet. The center isn't expected to be east of us for a few more hours. He doesn't remember Isobel in 2003 or Gaston at Myrtle Beach in 2004. If he did, I don't think he'd be so anxious for the 'action'.

I believe we have cloud cover showing up now, here in Ontario. Of course I don't think we will have any of the rain or wind from the storm, only the outer reaches of cloud, but you are correct Becky it is a huge system.

Oh yeah - it's a massive system in size! They were saying about 1000 kilometers across - which is twice the size of TC Yasi that hit Queensland earlier this year. A good thing though is that the larger in size they are, the destructive forces often are weaker because they are spread out further. Not that that is much consolation to those who get caught up in it!

That's a cute article, Dragon. I believe drastic changes in air pressure can cause women who are close to delivering to go into labor. We had some gusts during the night and lots of rain, bt I don't think the gusts exceeded 50 mph. Haven't heard how much rain we got yet but I checked on the level of the local creek and its barely risen. I live on a hill. It would take a Noah's Ark situation to get this high. I've never heard of land slides around here, so I doubt the rain could cause that to happen. Its not that steep of a hill.

Well it's Sunday, and I can tell you this:Hurricane Irene didn't do shit. I knew the news was just trying to put fear into us again. Nothing but wind and rain and everyone's acting like it's a Roland Emmerich disaster film and shitting their pants with fear, including my mother, uncle and older brother. I just KNEW it wouldn't be any major problem from the moment I heard about it. Fucking news. Stop trying to scare everyone. And on top of that, I'm in a bad mood because of something that happened last night.

Allen, my father always says an ounce of precaution is worth a pound of regret - meaning it is far better to be prepared for the worst than having to deal with the aftermath. Hurricanes and other severe weather patterns are not able to be predicted to with 100% certainty - Irene could have easily turned out to be the worst natural disaster NYC and the surrounding areas have faced in decades - as it is, reports are suggesting several people still died as a result. That you and your family escaped the worst - great! That is truly fantastic! But what could have happened was still very real - and several families are dealing with that now. Be thankful you were spared, Allen - and never forget that Mother Nature is definitely not a deity to be dismissed. You, and thousands of others, were lucky - this time.

Nice story, Dragonsbain.

Originally posted by Dragonsbain Seventeen babies were born at New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington as Hurricane Irene passed. But not 1 of them was named Irene.

I don't think I'd want to grow up knowing I was named after a natural disaster!

Originally posted by Becky Rock That's a cute article, Dragon. I believe drastic changes in air pressure can cause women who are close to delivering to go into labor.

That would make sense. I wonder if stress has anything to do with it too -I think I've encountered a fair number of movies/books where, in the midst of a big crisis, that's when the pregnant woman character goes into labor. My aunt was a pediatric nurse for decades, and she swears that full moons induce labor. Not too sure I believe that though...

Originally posted by lborgia88

Originally posted by Becky Rock That's a cute article, Dragon. I believe drastic changes in air pressure can cause women who are close to delivering to go into labor.

That would make sense. I wonder if stress has anything to do with it too -I think I've encountered a fair number of movies/books where, in the midst of a big crisis, that's when the pregnant woman character goes into labor.

I would believe that, but then I am basing that on what I have seen on TV and in the movies. And as we know they are not always "correct" in what happens in real live.

My aunt was a pediatric nurse for decades, and she swears that full moons induce labor. Not too sure I believe that though...

As a teacher I would claim that a full moon makes children wilder. Being windy also seems to have the same affect. I would also say that eating candy at Halloween affects children's temperaments, and yet doctors have written studies saying sugar does not have this affect. (So, what to believe?)

Originally posted by AllentownDarkWater Well it's Sunday, and I can tell you this:Hurricane Irene didn't do shit. I knew the news was just trying to put fear into us again. Nothing but wind and rain and everyone's acting like it's a Roland Emmerich disaster film and shitting their pants with fear, including my mother, uncle and older brother. I just KNEW it wouldn't be any major problem from the moment I heard about it. Fucking news. Stop trying to scare everyone. And on top of that, I'm in a bad mood because of something that happened last night.

I think any storm that results in 21 deaths and many more missing did, in fact, do shit. : shakes head and rolls eyes :

It did come in a lot weaker than expected. Of course that's easy for me to say watching it safely from the west coast. The death toll was just updated to 35. However, most appear to be either from falling trees or people being stupid. I'm sorry, but trying to surf through it (I saw reports of this, but nothing that ties this to any deaths or missing), driving through flooded streets or boating/canoeing, particularly without a life jacket are just really stupid behaviors.

Just depends on where you are at the time it hits and what warnings people listened to.(A tree falling on a house is another thing, not everything can be controlled.) I can imagine some people would have be caught in cars trying to get home to family. I haven't seen the news on TV in the last few days but have heard an update here and there on the radio. Sydney doesn't get hit by cyclones but we still have some vicious storm fronts go through every few years. Living in the country regions I saw a few that did damage and caused deaths, my home town got caught up in 3 storm cells converging over the town and hit at once the results were not pretty. That wasn't fun at all to be caught up in... My father got injured helping people to safetly on the golf into the club course it hit that fast!

Originally posted by Ebonyswanne Just depends on where you are at the time it hits and what warnings people listened to.(A tree falling on a house is another thing, not everything can be controlled.) I can imagine some people would have be caught in cars trying to get home to family.

Yeah, the falling trees are just freaky accidental deaths. However, people driving through flood waters is a different matter. I can't speak for the east coast, but we get lots of public service reminders warning us not to drive through flooded streets. It's people not paying attention to there surroundings or being to preoccupied to care. Even flash floods they do happen suddenly, but they don't happen without warning.

Few people realize how easy it is for a car to flood and stall. The water may not look that deep to a driver. Surfing during a hurricane is people being stupid: 'Dude, I can totally do this and it'll be sooo cooooolll!!!' Pretty sure the boating is a combination of that and 'I have a boat, so I don't have to leave.'

Originally posted by UnpublishedWriter Few people realize how easy it is for a car to flood and stall. The water may not look that deep to a driver. Surfing during a hurricane is people being stupid: 'Dude, I can totally do this and it'll be sooo cooooolll!!!' Pretty sure the boating is a combination of that and 'I have a boat, so I don't have to leave.'

It tells you how people don't think or are stubborn, that all of the above are 'too commons' on the Darwin Awards. But it's no easier on the families.

Originally posted by SJ_SwanJun

Originally posted by AllentownDarkWater Well it's Sunday, and I can tell you this:Hurricane Irene didn't do shit. I knew the news was just trying to put fear into us again. Nothing but wind and rain and everyone's acting like it's a Roland Emmerich disaster film and shitting their pants with fear, including my mother, uncle and older brother. I just KNEW it wouldn't be any major problem from the moment I heard about it. Fucking news. Stop trying to scare everyone. And on top of that, I'm in a bad mood because of something that happened last night.

I think any storm that results in 21 deaths and many more missing did, in fact, do shit. : shakes head and rolls eyes :

21 deaths? Where? All that happened here was the power went out a couple of times and the basement flooded a teeny bit. The only major problem I noticed was this one store being closed because they lost power. Geez, I didn't even know there were any deaths. Of course the deaths are not by any means good.

Allen, babe, you need to actually take notice of the rest of the world. It sounds like you got lucky and didn't get much affect from the hurricane. Unfortunately, a number of other areas didn't get that same luck. There was major flooding, some major damage, and, unfortunately deaths. Some of the deaths were genuinely caused by damage from teh hurricane. What is even sadder, is some of the deaths were caused by humans being stupid. Whilst I grieve for their families, I can't feel sorry for those who died becuase they were doing something stupid. All I can think of is the emergency workers who wer unable to help them - and who would be suffering because of that.

As I said before, Allen - you and your family were lucky. Your family were prepared for the worst, and happily, you didn't need it this time around - kiss the ground and thank your gods! I once slept through what I considered a rather weak typhoon only to walk the five minutes to work in the morning to discover the engineers there examining a gaping hole in the middle of the playground. The sheer force of the water had washed the hole and created a cavern underneath the ground that was three times larger than the hole itself - there were very real concerns for the stability of our building! Irene had a huge front to her.... hurricanes, typhoons, cyclones... they are not small, localised storms and just because your house barely got wet doesn't mean that down the road, your neighbours didn't swim through it - or fifty miles away, a family isn't grieving. You have a very powerful tool in your Internet access, Allen - if you search it, you would find out all the information on Irene there is. And you would know exactly how lucky you were.

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Lee, thank you. Most of what I've seen are Darwin Awards nominees and news reports. Thank you for reminding us of the people behind this tragedy, and that while the storm may have spared some areas, it devastated others.

Lee.... words cannot describe how sorry I am to hear that you and your family have been so affected... It is so easy for us of those who only see these things briefly on the news to forget the long term - because it is no longer newsworthy. Those farmers have lost their entire income for the year... The dairy and beef farmers will now be faced with higher prices for the feed they need in order to make a living next year... Cut off communities may take months before they can move freely back and forth or get power or even more than the basic supplies the government think to send in.. My heart and my prayers go out to you and yours, Lee. I have my fingers crossed that you will be soon reunited with all those you cannot contact at the moment and that all are well. And.... Thank you for giving us all a true perspective on the situation. Just because the news isn't reporting all of this doesn't mean it's not happening. It just means the news needs a dose of reality and to stop looking for the most ridiculous or the sublime to report on. Not all deaths were victims of their own stupidity, but honest to goodness people just swept up in Mother Nature's power.... shame that's not what they're focussing on though.

Link. Scroll down: There's photos of the severe damage near the bottom. http://www.njherald.com/

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Lee, you have no idea how worried I was for you, knowing where you live and that it was in the path. I'm glad you came out of it OK - but I'm so sorry to hear that your family is cut off and hope that they will be able to be reached soon. The worse thing about this sort of event is that you just can't predict what shall be damaged and how. I agree with Amethyst - we can be thankful that it did come as a Cat 1.

More than stupid. I value my life more than a cheap thrill.

The death toll seems to be increasing daily (I suspect mostly due to the rising waters as the rainwater flows down from higher ground) and although it may not have been bad in some areas, for such a large strong storm to hit anywhere as far north as it did, is a "big" thing.

I didn't mean to sound so careless when I made my original post. I was in a bad mood from something that happened to me personally that night, and I was really irritated that I just couldn't think about anything else and I was just mad that I worked my butt for nothing to be prepared for total chaos too.

That's the problem with storms: they can't be accurately predicted. One week, a thunderstorm that was predicted to hit town quickly peters out -- but the next week, the one that was supposed to go one way ends up going another. Yet another doesn't last very long, but it dumps enough rain to float an aircraft carrier (or so it seems), after the weather service said it wouldn't be very bad. I live far enough inland that we would not have been affected (except maybe for some rain). But we spent a week prepping one of our buildings in case patients were evacuated from Savannah. It's now fully furnished, and all we need to worry about are the details next time. One of these days, the evacuation will occur.

Originally posted by AllentownDarkWater I didn't mean to sound so careless when I made my original post. I was in a bad mood from something that happened to me personally that night, and I was really irritated that I just couldn't think about anything else and I was just mad that I worked my butt for nothing to be prepared for total chaos too.

It is one of the problems with so much communication being done via the internet - we forget that on the other side of the screen, behind the posts, at the end of a bloody long cable, is a real person and not just the bunch of words we see. I think that was your main issue here, Allen - you forgot that you were communicating with a lot of real people via this site. People who live anywhere from a just a few to thousands of miles away from you. In such a situation it is very easy to become 'me, me, me' because it is somewhat removed from the real life that surrounds us - we interact with an inanimate object (the screen) and every now and again something new we didn't put there pops up. Sometimes it is amusing... sometimes it makes us think... and sometimes it makes us peeved or irked - but we rarely think of the real life human being behind the words. We rarely think of them on the same level as we think of ourselves because if we passed them on the street we wouldn't immediately recognise them for who they are. In other words, it is very easy to dismiss them - because, hell, we are here, we are real - they're just a bunch of words on the screen! Okay... so you were angry about something that happened to you that same night.... And Irene didn't live up to your expectations... And by the sounds of it, you're in an area that doesn't get hit by tropical storms all that often - all this means it is far too easy for you to forget all the real people out there. In saying that I understand how it happened, I would also heavily suggest, that for your own personal development, you find a way not to be so insulated and so cut off from the world in general that a major catastrophe becomes all about you and what you did in 'wasted' preparation for it. Could you perhaps help fund raise for those most affected? Such activities can bring a great deal of personal satisfaction to those involved - this I can tell you from personal experience - although I can also tell you that it's a lot of hard work too! LOL

Originally posted by green It is one of the problems with so much communication being done via the internet - we forget that on the other side of the screen, behind the posts, at the end of a bloody long cable, is a real person and not just the bunch of words we see. I think that was your main issue here, Allen - you forgot that you were communicating with a lot of real people via this site. People who live anywhere from a just a few to thousands of miles away from you. In such a situation it is very easy to become 'me, me, me' because it is somewhat removed from the real life that surrounds us - we interact with an inanimate object (the screen) and every now and again something new we didn't put there pops up. Sometimes it is amusing... sometimes it makes us think... and sometimes it makes us peeved or irked - but we rarely think of the real life human being behind the words. We rarely think of them on the same level as we think of ourselves because if we passed them on the street we wouldn't immediately recognise them for who they are. In other words, it is very easy to dismiss them - because, hell, we are here, we are real - they're just a bunch of words on the screen! [quote]all this means it is far too easy for you to forget all the real people out there.

Thank you Green for pointing this out. It is something we all need to be reminded of once in a while - or maybe it is only me who needs to be constantly reminded of it. It IS very easy to forget that the others we are speaking to on these boards are more than a bunch of letters strung together. Sometimes I also forget that what is written by a person is not expressed well because emotions are not conveyed with the written word. Most of the time emotions are conveyed in our voices and gestures, not in our words.

We watch this on the internet, news reports, hear it on the radio, and we have an emotional reaction, but we are not there, so we can dissociate... Those of us who have experienced natural disasters ( at any level) or have worked or volunteered in evac centers, impact zones or clean-ups have an understanding about what these people are going through. Whether you are directly effected, know of someone, or have a previous related experience , it effects you and your view on things, and we all react differently. Those people (Darwin Award nominees) who lost their lives, perhaps they did not think of the consequences or did not think it would happen to them, either way it's always a loss of another human life, and for others, they have to re-build their lives and figure out a way to cope with the loss of property, crops, and everything else. Lee, I'll add you and your family to my prayers (sometimes not knowing is the hardest) For all others affected, I'll add you too Allen, it always pays to be OVER prepared, in every situation, If you have a chance do some voluneer work, , walk in someone elses shoes for a while, you get to see your life and theirs from a different perspective and from my point of view I appreciate what I have and don't have so much more

No, Cloud, you're not the only one, I can assure you! I dare say every internet user has done it at least once in the last, ummmm.... three hours or so! LOL Your point about not having full access to a person's method of communication is definitely more than valid as well - without seeing their face or hearing their tone of voice, it is impossible to glean all the information in what someone is saying. I know I have heard that a rather significant percentage of communication is done through non-verbal cues, but I just can't remember the actual number... But all in all, I guess this is why there's so many internet etiquette 'guides' out there - and trolls!

RI Girl, I hope all of your family affected by Irene are okay, and that the clean-up and repairs go quickly and well! One of my aunts in Connecticut still doesn't have power yet, nor does a cousin in Maine, but my parents in Nova Scotia fared well as Irene wasn't very strong by the time it got that far north.

Sometimes it is amusing... sometimes it makes us think... and sometimes it makes us peeved or irked - but we rarely think of the real life human being behind the words. We rarely think of them on the same level as we think of ourselves because if we passed them on the street we wouldn't immediately recognise them for who they are. In other words, it is very easy to dismiss them - because, hell, we are here, we are real - they're just a bunch of words on the screen!

Of course! Hell you guys are like family to me, so of course I know that you're more than just words on the screen.