After Irene


Good Morning everyone,

As you can tell, we have power, phone, internet.  We lost power for about 12 hours yesterday, starting a little after 10:00 AM.  

It was a tense day, but we have fared pretty well.  From our house it doesn't seem all that bad, especially considering the tree damage that we have already seen earlier this summer.  But when I walked the dogs this morning, I was surprised at how bad the damage is right here in our neighborhood.  It's not possible to count all of the trees that are down.  I'm concerned that more may fall today, even though the weather is clear, calm and sunny.  The ground is so wet and many of the trees are now leaning, because the wind was relentless.

Downed trees and flooding have closed a lot of roads in the area.  Ironically, our street is one of the few that is open and useful for getting anywhere.  So we have an unusually large number of people passing the house this morning.  Apparently most of them are late for work or heading to a fire or a great sale, because they are flying down the road.  I, being one of great patience and compassion, am cursing most of them and wishing they'd go speeding down someone else's road.

Yesterday was "Who's gotta a pick-up truck day."  The rain was falling at the rate of 1 or 2 inches per hour.  The wind was gusting at 30+ miles per hour.  Trees and power lines were everywhere.  And every guy with a pick up truck put his kid in the passenger seat and took at least one pass (flying) down our road.  It was unbelievable.  It got to the point where Kim and I would watch the another one pass by and just laugh.

The flooding will be a major issue today, record level they say.  On my walk, I went to a spot that overlooks the Mohawk, and it was actually a little scary.  I didn't imagine that the water could be so high at that spot.  They are saying the water will crest here at about 2:30 this afternoon.  It may be the worst flooding that the Stockade and Scotia have on record.  They're not sure, but say it's possible.  The flooding in the Stockade might reach Erie Blvd. or even Broadway.  I think that would impact the GE plant.

Schoharie County has closed every road today.  The flooding on the creek and in the Middleburg area is extreme.

Our local news outlets are WTEN, WNYT, WRGB and WXXA.  I'm sure you'll be able to see footage of the flooding later today.

The water in our basement wasn't as bad as we've seen in the past.  I think that's because I went outside and put sheets of plastic on the ground where the water was pouring off of the house.  I managed to get most all of that water to run off into the driveway.  In the basement we were able to soak up the water with towels and wring it into buckets.  I probably collected about five or ten gallons every hour or so.  We were ready for it; we cleared the floor on Saturday, so it was easy to gather it up.  Most of our stuff stayed dry, except for the rug in the area where the TV is set up for the kids.  We don't see water there often, but it's not surprising in this situation.  Today I'll spend some time down there getting the last puddle cleaned up.  It will be nice to work in the light.  Working in the dark was my least favorite part, I think.

So we're fine.  We can't really do much today, so we'll be here.  We love you all.

Rob