Going to the grocery store this morning, my regularly "scheduled" weekly visit. I am hoping the shelves have staple items. The radio yesterday was urging that people stock up on their emergency supplies early to avoid the inevitable empty shelves on the weekend. How about us folks who are legitimately out of bread and milk?

I have s stash of good books, canned goods in adequate supply, and candles. I am ready.

Veronicae.......where are you located?

I am in the southern tier of New York state.

yoyo, we heard about the earthquake on the BBC and that the epicentre was 'near' Washington DC. How far away was it felt?
I hope all our RP friends are safe.

So far this year we've had a tornado (Springfield MA, about a half hour from my house), an earthquake (felt it in CT, very odd!), and now a looming hurricane. I think a plague of locusts is scheduled for next month ...

Really, a very unusual summer.

I'm waiting to see a better prediction for New England over the next 48 hours, but I'm making my "batten down the hatches" list this morning just in case. We rode out hurricanes Gloria (1985) and Bob (1991), so I hope this one isn't any worse!

Stay safe friends. The models look a little scary right now for vulnerable populations. I was just reading about the last big storms that hit NY a century or so ago. The linked Weather Nerd is worth a look. He was dead on about Katrina. Maybe a fluke, but he makes for interesting reading and he interprets the weather service technotalk for the rest of us.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Weather Nerd

Don't know if it will reach Maine, and presumably will be just rain if does come this far. But we are pretty much always ready for storms here. I will, however, make an emergency trip to the library ;)

I moved a year ago from one hurricane-prone area to another. I'm right on the sea coast. I'll never forget when hurricane Isabel hit Virginia a few years back. Our city looked like a war zone and we lost power for 3 weeks. Obviously, we stayed put and did not evacuate. No one here is evacuating, either.

Hi Friends,

Checking in from Central Pennsylvania. We are not scheduled to bear the brunt of the storm, just lots and lots of rain. Naturally, this could change. I am as ready as I can be... car fuel tank full, water, and lots and lots and lots of books and candles. In 1972, my parents had over 8 feet of water in their home from the flooding due to Tropical Storm Agnes. I have never ever forgotten that experience (I was only five at the time) and every time I consider buying a house, I check for flooding beforehand. I may have only been five, but I lost my Big Wheel... and that shall forever remind me of the fury of nature.

yoyo, the coincidences in your post were eerie. Thanks for sharing. I am off to check out weather nerd now, thank you Chris.

Stay safe everyone. Please check in afterward so we know you are okay.

PAM

yoyoban - we're in mid Westchester County, not far from the CT border.

Vee, my niece is in Atlanta, and she posted on Facebook that she "felt the earth move." There were a few reports of mild movement here in Louisville, but I didn't notice anything.

We got a lot of trees and live wires down two years ago from Hurricane Ike. Someone wrote a letter to the editor of the newspaper complaining that the city wasn't prepared--for a hurricane in Kentucky? I ask you.

Hope everyone is safe and it blows out to sea.

Hope everyone is safe and things stay that way.

Sheri, one of my FB friends said they had had locusts this year in their part of the US!

I just saw about this on our Friday evening news. It showed people evacuating inland after securing their homes as much as possible.
I have been caught in a cyclone and so I know how frightening it can be. The sheep paddocks caught fire from lightening but the fire went through and burned the short nibbled grass so quickly that the sheep were unharmed. I think their thick wool protected them. I did a report to the local radio station. My two minutes of fame!

yoyobon,

Those are interesting facts indeed! I live in central NY and we felt the earthquake here too. Irene is supposed to have an impact on us as well, although we're on the fringes and are only supposed to have strong winds and a lot of rain. I am hoping that Irene will fizzle out and turn into a mere rain event before she can do much damage. My thoughts go out to all of you who are directly in her path.

one of my daughters lives in St. Mary's County MD. the only county in MD. with an actual hurricane warning. They also felt the earthquake strong enough that my daughter said the whole house swayed and it woke my grandson from his nap. My 4 yr. old granddaughter is learning a lot about storms this week

I have been told by someone who is monitoring New York City that only taxis can be seen driving in the streets. The TV newscasters said there has been a mass evacuation from the area. Where has everyone gone to find shelter?
In Hong Kong, the place I was told was the typhoon shelter was actually small boats in a part of the harbour. I was expecting something like the air-raid shelters I went to as a child during the London Blitz.

Here in upstate New York we have little more than a steady rain and moderate winds. Not much more than a usual storm.
I'm not sure how NYC is fairing.

It wasn't too bad here, after the warnings -- only strong winds and heavy rains for one day. Now, all the humidity is gone and the weather is perfect: sunny and dry.

Well, it's been raining steadily here in central NY since about 4 this morning and is still raining although not as heavily as it was earlier. About 1/2 hour ago, I received a robo-call from the local police dept saying we were under a mandatory evacuation order and to await local firemen/police to come and take the residents of the house to a safety center. I think I received the call in error as I live up on a hill and the only way flooding could affect my area is if we had the proverbial 40 days and nights... There is flooding in the area though; on the local news website there is an article about a dam breaking on the south side of the city. I think that's the area that's really supposed to have gotten the robocall.

I've been making good use of the enforced stay indoors at home though. I re-read Madeleine Robbins' Petty Treason and enjoyed it as much this time as I did the first time I read it. I wish she'd write more in the series, but I don't think it's going to happen, it's been a number of years since she wrote this one.

I also re-read Mairelon the Magician by Patricia Wrede (author of The Enchanted Chocolate Pot for those who liked that one) and laughed my way through it again,so I can't say the enforced indoor stay was a waste!

Sunday - Aug 28 - New York City

So far, we've lost over 800 trees, and all the subways in all 5 boroughs are closed. All Broadway shows are cancelled. All airports are shut down -- even for incoming flights. Not sure how many people will be going to work tomorrow -- altho' the powers-that-be kept all electricity going in Wall St. area! Hmmmm. .... Very good luck -- no one has died -- unlike during last winter's snow storm when preparations were so scanty, and the powers-that-be were out of town -- so the City had to run itself -- a disaster !

Here I am in Mid-Coast Maine, waiting for Irene, who hopefully has lessened and changed her path so we will experience only her edge, not her full wrath. This, however, is bad news for the people in the new path. It is so weird waiting for this sort of thing...after days of news, winds are starting to pick up and there is a bit of rain.

We had locusts-well, those big cicadas. Noisy, ugly, and I keep finding dead ones on the deck-they are huge! yuck.
We also felt the earthquake. The rivers are still rising, but should crest today.

I am in Lancaster County, PA, about 65 miles west of Philadelphia, and 40 miles due north of the Chesapeake Bay-which acted as a bit of a funnel, apparently. We got everything off the floor in the basement, cleared off the deck furniture, dragged all the flowerpots up against the house on the lee side, and charged all technology. We sat up until about 2 a.m. Sunday morning because the power kept flickering on and off-if the power goes out, so does the pump and we would have been bailing. We discussed buying a generator, but after doing a cost-benefit analysis, decided to risk it. Our power held but communities around us are out.
A fellow teacher lost three huge trees, and another friend's m-i-l had an ancient oak just kiss the side of her house as it fell. We lost limbs, and the yard looks like autumn, but no real damage-and in the middle of it all we moved DS back to college.

'Irene' is the goddess of peace, in Greek mythology.......Hm. I wonder who named that hurricane?

I've been thinking of you all across the pond. It all sounds very frightening but glad most are taking refuge in reading. May any gods that be, please keep you all safe.

Dido/Diana

Everyone, I'm glad that the storm, while certainly not trivial, ended up not being the major disaster that was originally predicted

An aside to Rouan, Madeleine Robbins does have a third book in the Sarah Tolerance series coming out this October. She changed publishers so it will be a trade paperback, not a hardcover. The title is The Sleeping Partner.

Rosefolly

I'm in Baltimore County in MD. For the earthquake, I was sitting at my kitchen table eating PBJ, reading Lars Kepler's The Hypnotist and thinking "what the %$@!# are those kids doing now?" until I realized not even my son could make the entire house shake like that unless he was detonating something. Luckily, a good shaking was all that occurred.
My household has been very fortunate with Irene, too. We lost power for only two hours before it was restored. Where I live, no electricity means no water since the well pump won't run. Others in our area as well as throughout MD are still without electric and the Balt Co public schools, which were supposed to open today, won't open until Wed at the earliest.

We were SO lucky Irene was down to tropical storm strength when it hit CT. We had power through the worst of it, but a transformer at the end of our street blew up around 11:00 Sunday morning and knocked the power out. It just came back up now.

I'm counting my blessings -- including generators and sump pumps that worked, beautiful post-hurricane weather, and really, really great neighbors.

Hope everyone else who was in the path of the storm is OK!

Glad that everyone has come through OK (unless they are still without power and unable to communicate). We have seen some scary scenes on TV; while in England, we sit huddled in many woollies as the daytime temps struggle to reach the 60's. Off to chop kindling for tonight's fire . . . yes really.

Vee and other UKers-

As we look at photos of the royals at weddings and visiting after the riots and arriving at Balmoral, I often hear people wonder why they are all wearing long sleeves, even coats, in summer-and I point out that your summer is not like our summer. In Oklahoma, where my dear friend lives, they have had nearly 50 STRAIGHT days of over 100F. And very little rain. She would love some 60s, and I am sure you'd take a soupcon of her warmth! Humans-the never satisfied animal.

Blessings and good energy to beautiful Vermont.
Is anyone here from that lovely piece of the world?
They really got hit.

Out of curiosity, I checked the Wikipedia for my home town in England, Bedford, and found to my astonishment that it averages 70's in the summer. *70's* sounds fantabulous after months of 100 degree and one rain storm since last October.

I am rather crossing my fingers we will get some rain when I visit home in October.(Not every day, mind you, but some.)

Here is a link that might be useful: Naming hurricanes

Rosefolly,

Thanks for the info on Madeleine Robbins. I will definitely keep my eye out for her new book!

Shaking........Blowing........and now FLOODING.

The rainfall is astounding .
I have never, ever seen such a hard rain that never lets up.
This has been coming down in sheets since before dawn and now 8 hours later we are flooding , and we live on a hill !

Yoyobon, we're experiencing the same rain here today ... it bucketed down overnight, and the brook behind my house is as high as it was during the hurricane. Needless to say, basement is wet and the sump pumps are going like mad. I'm yearning for crisp, DRY, autumn days!

Right now our area is looking at historical flooding, worse than the 100 year floods that happened in 2006.
Over the next two days the worst will occur.

Before I moved to California I lived for one year in Honesdale, PA, a small town in the Poconos. We lived across the street from the county courthouse, just a small parking lot separating us from the Lackawaxan River. I see that the river is expected to flood later today. I have been imagining what it would be like to live there still -- park the car across town up the hill, move everything I value that is portable to the upper floor, and get ready to vacate the premises.

Imagining all this gives me a glimpse into the minds of the people who are going through this in reality. I hope you all keep safe and dry through the storms.

Rosefolly

Gosh. I hope everyone (and their precious things) are staying warm and dry. Thinking good thoughts for those affected.

YoYo, Sheri and everyone in the path of this torrential rain, we'll be sending positive, drying, thoughts your way.

Thank you for the drying thoughts! We can use them -- we had 3 feet of water in the basement. So very lucky we had time to move precious items to higher ground, and I'm thanking my lucky stars we have flood insurance. Furnace, freezer, washer, dryer, and possibly the hot water heater are toast. We had five sump pumps pumping at one point today, and it was hard to keep up with the water coming in. This evening everyone is safe and dry, power is on, we're down to about six inches of water, and I'm counting my blessings.

Yoyobon, are you OK?

I live in Hershey, PA. Home of the chocolate factory. We had over a foot of rain. Only one road is open to and from town. Many folks are flooded, the middle school is flooded, it is a mess. People say this is the worst flooding since Tropical Storm Agnes hit in 1972, and the 9th worst flooding since they kept records.

So far, my house is okay. What worries me is whether or not the grocery stores can stay stocked... there are only two in town... with such limited access. People are starting to panic. Long lines at ATM machines, cartloads of water. I saw one lady with a cart full of frozen pizza. Wouldn't be my first choice in an emergency situation, but I guess it makes her happy. Another guy had a cart stacked full of water. FULL of water. His wife said, "We need food too, you know." Right now, the store is out of eggs and milk, almost out of bread and water.

I filled up my pantry and filled up my car's fuel tank. Now I guess we wait and see what happens. I saw the sun today. It shone for three minutes before disappearing again.

Rosefolly, my parents live a short distance from Honesdale, in Clarks Summit. They live on top of a mountain. They are okay. But Wilkes Barre is being evacuated, as are Edwardsville, Kingston, Plymouth, and other low-lying towns in the Wyoming Valley. Harrisburg, th state capitol of Pennsylvania, is very near me, and is also evacuating low-lying areas. The Susquehanna River is due to crest in Harrisburg tomorrow at about 15 feet above flood stage.

To everyone affected, please stay dry and stay safe. And thank you to all who send well wishes our way.
PAM

Today has brought amazing flooding.
Downtown Binghamton has been evacuated.
Downtown Owego is completely under water.
Endicott is in bad shape with so much flooding it boggles the mind.
Vestal is shut down from flooding in so many areas and people have evacuated.
I've seen many families who had the good fortune to own a motor home set it up at a local hilltop park !
All the local streams have become monsters of devastating power.
The Susquehanna is expected to crest tomorrow.
As I read the news, it appears that this mighty river is delivering the same flooding horror downstream in Pennsylvania.
It is the most bizarre weather situation I can remember.
And Texas burns...........

Yoyobon-I think I told you before, my s-i-l's family is in Vestal. Last night none of them could get home. His mom is a school nurse and stayed at school because some children were stranded there. His father is a building inspector in a different town-so he was probably quite busy.
We also had children who were returned to school by the bus drivers when they couldn't get through. No school today, and many companies are closed. In the city of Lancaster, no water-the sewage plant flooded and they are afraid it will backflush into homes. I am southeast of PAM, and we got hammered. My husband was stuck out in the back of beyond yesterday-he called me and I googlemapped his location, then tried to talk him around the flooding-took 5 routes and an hour to get him where he needed to be-2 miles from where he was when he called me. Every creek is a river, every river is an ocean. We swept water to the sump pump for 6 hours last night, discovered our roof was leaking into the master bath when we went to bed, and just shrugged. What else could we do? Today we swept and wetvaced, mended downspouts and added dirt to low spots, dug trenches for the water being pumped out-crazy day. We were thankful that we had time to get things up. We were lucky-I work with someone who had to have the fire department pump out her basement. Around the corner a house collapsed. Now we are waiting for the next wave-weatherchannel is saying 3 hours of rain this evening.

Here is a link that might be useful: The reason my husband couldn't get back to work.

I think the rain, while hitting Maryland hard, is really hammering PA. I have family in Lancaster worried about flooding and family in Sunbury hoping the wall holding back the Susquehanna performs as it did during Agnes. I didn't realize evacuations were taking place in the Scranton area as I also have elderly aunties in Taylor and Old Forge. Anyone else hear that the almanacs are calling for another hard winter? Hope everyone stays safe through this.

If the winter weather is anything like the last two weeks here in the northeast, it is going to be a doozy.

Honestly, I cannot imagine what could top these last three major events !
Let's just pray for an uneventful season.
We don't need any blizzardy Nor'easters !
(Or as the NJ Housewives said : "Norwegians" !)

My sympathies to everyone affected by this weather. I have lost precious items to flooding in the past. The worst thing is when they are old photos. Most other stuff can be replaced. Stay safe.

Surprisingly little news from the BBC on your East Coast weather, except from the sports reports when the tennis from Flushing Meadow had to be postponed.
However all the papers/TV channels have special reports/programmes about the upcoming 10th anniversary of 9/II. Certainly that terrible TV footage will always be with me.
Look after yourselves wherever you are.

Sending good, drying thoughts your way. I can relate, as I lived some years in Pennsylvania and the rivers flooded the downtown annually, until certain infrastructures were provided to improve matters. When it rained, there was nary a dry basement in the town.

By the way, what is it like in Oneonta, NY?

From what I hear on the news, Oneonta's river was also causing flooding.

If anyone is interested, clink on link for all kinds of info on regional historic flooding.

Here is a link that might be useful: local flooding

And then to contrast it, the National Weather Service announces that June, July and August were the hottest three months ever recorded in the history of the U.S. and were worse than the Dust Bowl times (i.e. Grapes of Wrath times)...

Just extremely happy that I was lucky enough to be in AC for most of the time, and not picking cotton in a field...

Here is a link that might be useful: Reuters article on TX record heat.