BS: After Isobel

Subject: BS: After 'Isobel'
From: The Walrus
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 09:10 PM

I'm not sure where most of you are based, but how did those in the path of 'Isobel' fare?

Walrus (hoping everyone made it OK)

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Matt_R
Date: 20 Sep 03 - 11:38 PM

Isabel didn't do much here on my end down here in North Carolina, thank goodness. Isabel made landfall about an hour north (Ocracoke Island) of where I am (Hubert). Us folks on the southern edge of storm fared pretty well. Folks on the northern edge (Outer Banks, Edenton, Swan Quarter, Elizabeth City, NC) got hammered badly.

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Maryrrf
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 10:18 AM

Here in Richmond Virginia we got hit fairly hard. Lots of trees uprooted and assorted damage. They've gotten the power back on in most places, I think - ours came back on last night. Virginia Beach was hit much harder.   As Matt said, the Outer Banks of North Carolina really took a hit - but they are hardy folks and have weathered a lot of storms over the years!

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Amos
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 11:27 AM

Etymologically, "Iso-belle" means "equally beautiful", whereas "Isa-belle" means "Being a beauty", or "essence of beauty". Ya think? :>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Mrrzy
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 11:48 AM

We were OK in Cville... my house had some leaves in the yard and the power off from about 10 pm to 4 am, and the dead tree I'd been worrying would fall on my car someday came down and missed everything, even the road. But there were a lot of street lights out and I have friends who still don't have power, or cable - my cable never went out but lost a lot of local channels, and my local NPR station went out for a day or so too, nothing worse. And a lot of trees down and power lines down, just not right where I lived. This is the second hurricane that's missed my house completely - the last one knocked down trees to the east, north, west and south of me without even raining hard in my neighborhood. I think I'm in a weather hollow or some such thing... if I get rich, I'm keeping the house. Came up to DC to see Mom who has developed, or found out about having, serious heart trouble, and DC is a zoo - no street lights at more than half the intersections, only the main roads cleared of the trees and power lines blocking them, and in some places it was Lower your antenna to go under the power lines that aren't QUITE blocking the road... my sister in Fairfax will have to boil water for the foreseeable future, the water reservoirs all got contaminated when they flooded, and many folks there don't have power yet, so how are they supposed to boil the water? Imagine what Isabel could have done had she landed still in Cat. 5!

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Donuel
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 12:27 PM

Here in DC our cable and power was out for 48 hours.
I powered the house with a 3.8 liter engine that delivered 2000 watts.
I had to pick up a few twigs in the yard.

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: UB Ed
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 03:44 PM

Still out in my section of Richmond

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: jaze
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 07:22 PM

I'm incredibly lucky. I live just outside Richmond in Midlothian and my power came on friday at noon. I'm told because we're on the same grid as the water plant which was a priority to get back up. No trees fell on my house which is a miracle in itself as my house is surrounded by them. Plenty of people all over the area less fortunate. The area was indeed hit hard.

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 07:41 PM

Amused by a comment on BBC television news about the downed power lines. The commentator said our exposed system of poles and wires was "quaint and old-fashioned."
So true!

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Gorgeous Gary
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 08:55 PM

Sheryl and I (up in Rockville, MD) fared quite well, surprisingly. Lots of power flickers all Thursday night but never lost power for more than a minute. Worst thing that happened is that I mis-set a travel alarm clock (entered 10am when I should have put 10pm) so I woke up about two hours later than I should have Friday morning...and consequently got to my nearby office two hours late! Ah well, easy enough to make up. Also my parents nearby in Rockville and Bethesda did OK (although apparently my father was without hot water for a couple of days.

One person from my English Country dance group had a tree fall on their house and pretty much demolish their bedroom.

-- Gary

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Bill D
Date: 21 Sep 03 - 11:01 PM

64 hours without power, got it back just before dark today....lost some food in freezer, and got VERY weary doing stuff by candlelight, but no important damage at my place...two blocks from my house there is still a huge tree across a street with wires....and a little red car....under it. Luck of the draw....(we did have a very nice singing party at Nancy King's place, as she DID have power).....

Two blocks the other way from my house they are still dark, and some will be waiting for days....This storm caused a lot of misery and damage thru floods and power outages.

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: jeffp
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 09:50 AM

Not even a flicker at my house in Columbia, MD. Just a few miles away in Laurel, my sister-in-law has a flooded basement and no power, probably until Thursday or so. She has a borrowed generator now to run the freezer and sump pump, but had to throw out a very smelly carpet from the basement.

My work site in Landover lost power from Thursday til Sunday, as I found out when I showed up Friday morning and was turned away by the security guard.

jeffp

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: beadie
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 10:39 AM

Here in the midwest, we're still waiting for our next weather crisis.

In the mid-Atlantic states, you had Hurricane Isabel.

In Wisconsin, we're anticipating Winter Isabitch.

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 07:09 PM

Well Iz the happiest hillbilly in Mission Holler which is 8 miles south of Harpers Ferry, Wes Ginny. Sure, we had trees down all over the mountain, lectricical out, phones out, cable out! Who cares. My double decker cottage bus didn't get blowed over on its side. Might of fact, at the height of the winds and ran, I put on my botts and rain gear and fought my way up to the bus, went upstairs, cranked up the CD player in there and dared Izzie to take her best shot...Ahhh, nuthin' like an idiot with a little smoke in his head... I coulda been kilt... Man, tress fallen all over the place and me... ahhhh, smoked up with the CD player blarin' in 60 mph winds and at least 30 trees within range of the bus? Now, if there are any kittens out there in Catboxburg, do not, I repeat, do not follow the example of yer dumbass Uncle Bobert. He is an idiot..... I know.....

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: jaze
Date: 22 Sep 03 - 08:21 PM

What was you smokin,Bobert??

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: CapriUni
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 11:36 AM

I posted this to my LiveJournal yesterday morning:

I was in the middle of writing this up yesterday when the power went out again. The grandfatherly gentleman that makes the afternoon deliveries for Mister Jim's restaurant (delicious and artery-clogging sandwhiches, but they also make salads, so they have some saving graces) said it was probably the cable people's fault.

Anyway, it's back on now (fingers crossed that it's for good, or at least until I can log this), so here goes:

Power went out at 8:28am on Thursday morning, much to the miffedness of my neighbors and me, since the storm hadn't even started yet -- barely even a spritz. The rumor I heard the next day from a couple of neighbors was that a transformer blew, somewhere. Go figure.

Anyway, Dad and I did not lock ourselves away in my windowless bathroom, but I was mentally ready to make a bolt for it, if the wind showed any signs of getting stronger, or if there was any drastic change in the sky, which didn't happen all day. Looking back on it, I think that was the right decision... the breakfast nook is on the leaward side of the house, and being able to see what was happening outside let me stay calm (when I did go into the bathroom, for normal calls of nature, I realized the sound of the storm was magnified thanks to good accoustics. Locking ourselves in there, in the dark, with two nervous cats would have been mucho freaky),

Instead, we sat at the kitchen table listening to the wind-up radio, while I noted down all the info in a spiral notebook, so I could report back here (another way I kept myself calm). Reading back over it 11 days later, it strikes me that 99% of it is minutae, and rather b-o-o-o-o-ring, and the really interesting bits I didn't record at all. Mostly, it was minute by minute announcements of windspeed and number of poeple without electricity, which can be summed up in two sentances.

Although the official reports of windspeeds from the national hurricane center kept coming in at around 100+ mph, the reports from local TV weather stations were more like 50-60 mph, with gusts to hurricane force (75 mph). (The radio stations were broadcasting the tv news all day, and the "weather personalities" kept saying: "As you can see, the strongest rain bands are here, and here..." much to the amusement of my father and me)

and:

When it was all over, 1,800,000 people in Virginia and northeast North Carolina were without power (Dad said listening to the numbers go up throughout the day was like listening to the announcements on charity telethons ;-)). The latest report from Dominion Virginia Power's website here, say that it's now down to 88,000... Pre-Isabel, that would be major news... now, it's so close to "normal," it's barely worth mentioning... I find it ironic, considering their logo is almost Godlike (can't post it here, but you can see it on their home page).

Imagine their chagrin when they realized how much more power Mother Nature has... and it wasn't just that this was a big storm, but much of the devastation came from all the rain we've had all summer long...

These were the bits that were interesting that I did write down:

(Sometime around 11 am) Fun Stuff - found a radio station just for Chesapeake -- old time jazz, played a record Dad had as a teenager. Then the radio kicked out suddenly -- may have had their antenna knocked over.

2:30 pm -- heard something that sounded like a door slamming. Dad thought it sounded like a window -- went to see what it was and said "uh-oh." That tall, skinny, sickly tree (the one I was afraid would fall and called someone to cut down) did indeed fall -- missing the house by 2-3 feet. A few degrees of a difference, and it would have burst through my office window. As it is, it hit nothing. And as I was writing this, the top of another tree (one of a cluster of trunks) hit the ground -- also hitting nothing (except the ground).

And that's the last thing I wrote in the notebook, so far. I really think that tree falling where and how it did was luck on an historic scale, and I asked one of my neighbors to take a picture of it before the guys of the cul-de-sac came 'round with their chain saws to clean it up, so I could show it to all of you...

What turned out to be really interesting I didn't learn until the next day, and over the next 10 days after that as I lived by the sun without electricity... but I didn't write any of that down (isn't that always the way?). I'll try and write that stuff up tommorrow, or at least soon... Right now, I have to go charge my chair in preperation for running around the supermarket later this evening to replenish my food supplies.

Toodlatoots, Every Buddy!

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: mike the knife
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 01:37 PM

Wow- Capri- you were listening to WFOS- the station run by the City of Chesapeake Public Schools- I did a little radio there many moons ago. Cool little station. Yep, Mr. Jim's does do wonderful sandwiches. My folks (other side of the City of Cheasapeake) fared pretty well- downed limbs, etc. & the water got up to the back steps, but no losses. My neighborhood in Norfolk (Ghent) lost some big trees & I was w/out power until Sunday morning. I had gas, so we (storm refugee houseguests & I) ate as much of everything in the fridge/freezer as possible, and tucked into the grog ration, making the best of an otherwise unpleasant situation. I work for a restaurant chain (I'm the corporate marketing guy) and we worked like stevedores getting everybody (one-by-one) up & running when we got power back. Back-to-back 14+ hour days. Friday I wore a plastic bag for 4 hours, scrubbing, etc. I for one am all for not having any more of these. Show of hands?

Subject: RE: BS: After Isobel
From: CapriUni
Date: 01 Oct 03 - 03:46 PM

From Mike the Knife -- Wow- Capri- you were listening to WFOS- the station run by the City of Chesapeake Public Schools- I did a little radio there many moons ago.

Like I said before the storm: we're practically neighbors! We should get together some time...

I for one am all for not having any more of these. Show of hands?

Well, I was going through serious IWS (Internet Withdrawal Syndrome) for a while, but I think, in the end, going without electricity for so long actually did some good. Going to bed when it got dark, and getting up when it got light really reset my diurnal clock, and I had fewer headaches in those 11 days than I've had in months. Also, my allergies were also greatly relieved (to my surprise) with the windows open all over the house instead of relying on the AC. It was character building.

But my character is nice and strong now, thank you very much, and I'm glad to be back wallowing in electric comfort. So you've got my vote for the Hurricane Cessation Program. Unfortunately, I don't think Mother Nature works by democracy...