Irene's coming

As you may have heard, we are about to be smacked by Mother Nature. As I type this, just after 11pm Saturday, we can see the beginning of Hurricane Irene forming outside.

It's been calm here today, even with the mandatory evacuation of the south half of Patchogue (not our half, fortunately). There were a few little rain showers, but nothing to stop us from getting everything ready. Or at least as ready as we can be -- it's hard to know what to expect.

The forecast has changed from time to time. At the moment they are saying that Irene won't even be a Category 1 hurricane by the time it gets to us, merely a strong tropical storm. But those in charge are very worried about the slow speed of this storm, meaning it will be dumping lots of water. We are bracing for extended power outages and possible flooding. Unlike New Orleans, we're above sea level -- slightly -- and the island has a good pitch down to the bay. We also have the benefit of Fire Island between us and the storm, which we all hope will absorb a lot of the storm surge.

Still, what can you do but prepare as best you can and deal with things as they come up. Before I left the office Friday, we moved all the computers away from the windows and covered everything as well as possible.

My office is in a low-lying area, so it may well be flooded. Also, they've never really fixed the roof after last year's tornado drove several trees through it. Unfortunately we ran out of tarps, and had to cover documents with whatever we had at hand.

Naturally even a hurricane is no excuse to let any deadlines slip!

We spent most of the day today preparing everything here at home. Our garage sometimes has minor flooding issues, so I had to make some improvised dams. The Chevy gets to stay in the garage since it doesn't have comprehensive insurance.

Harriet also gets to stay in the garage. No insurance on her either.

Ami planted sunflowers that did really well this year. We will miss them. I'm also very worried about all the new plants I put in this spring, including some great (and expensive) trees.

The main body of the storm is supposed to hit us tomorrow around 8am. Right now it is raining lightly, with a light wind moving directly west. The clouds are moving much more rapidly. It's kind of eerie to feel such a little wind while the clouds race past silently. We are east of the projected center, and the storm is rotating counterclockwise. So the wind starts out east to west, then it will shift around from the south and end up west to east as the bottom of the storm comes up.

If we still have internet access, we'll give another update tomorrow during the day. If communications go out, don't worry, I am pretty sure we'll be fine here. We have lots of water, batteries, and enough food storage to last through several hurricane seasons (thanks Marge). So we'll try to put something up as soon as possible. Here we go!