Current forecast has the eye of the storm heading pretty much straight for us - and then on to Max. What he'll have to deal with is the combination of the hurricane, or what's left of it, and the winter storm coming in from the west. The worst of the storm will be for those of us north of the eye.

This storm pretty much terrifies me - last year I spent all night during Irene with a flashlight in one hand and a mop in the other, trying to keep the water out of the finished part of the basement. With the exception of one small area, I succeeded too, but damn, it was a long night. Now we have larger gutters and a sump pump, but it's electric, so....

Should have gotten a generator!

Last year Hurricane Irene also put about an inch of water in my congregation's religious education wing, and the "remnants" of Lee put two feet. So we're all pretty nervous around here.

And of course, we remember what Irene did to Magpie and Kim and Reggie Harris's bridge - I sure hope they'll be okay.

The problem with weaker storms is that they're also slower storms, which means they dump a whole lot more rain. The storm everyone's comparing this to is Hurricane Agnes. Now, I was born during Hurricane Agnes - perhaps the very definition of a calamitous event.

Dan