<p>I live in Charlotte 200± miles inland. It has been 20+ years since Hugo came thru here I am still amazed at the damage we received. Huge trees down all over the city, some people were without power for 2 weeks, etc. If you are told to evacuate - please leave!</p>
<p>I hope everyone stays safe during Irene. nj2011mom, you mention the hurricane of '38. That storm hit New England in September, and killed about 800 people. The area still sees the aftermath, with the geography of Long Island changed permanently. And it was estimated to be only a Cat 2 or 3.</p>
<p>My thoughts are with you, East Coast CC’ers! Please stay safe!</p>
<p>D’s school finally posted a hurricane Irene update: students are encouraged to come to campus earlier and can move into the dorms strating today. She did take her rain jacket and some granola bars and beef jerky with her, but laughed that she would not need it. When she called today, I reminded her to withdraw some cash, and normally she would have rolled her eyes, but this time she thanked me.</p>
<p>My daughter likes to make this mother not have a restful weekend! She has had a weekend planned with her college girlfriends in Connecticut, so three of them are driving up from the DC area. I have no idea if they will hit a lot of traffic heading north, but I am sure when it is time to head back home, the road will not be great.</p>
<p>I am just glad that the girls will be staying at the parent’s home of one of the girls; at least there will be some real adults in the house 
The girls are excited to just hunker down with movies and see each other. They try to get together at least twice a year and they were not willing to reschedule. They all have mothers that were concerned, but the girls are adults, so all we could do was share our opinions. Beyond that, all I can hope is they are safe.</p>
<p>My daughter must have heard some of what I said, as she stopped and bought a car phone charger today. I mentioned that if they ended up in long traffic that there would be a concern that the cell phones would die; so while she didn’t admit that it was a good idea to have a charger, she when and bought one!</p>
<p>We took a ride to the ocean (about 7 minute drive from home). The tide is all ready almost up to the dunes. It’s going to be a mess when the storm front comes through. The timing is bad. It’s expected at the same time as the typical new moon high tide. </p>
<p>On a side note: As we were driving home, we got cut off by Hillary Clinton’s security detail.
They blew right through a yield sign. </p>
<p>We’re as ready as we can be. Now it’s time to relax and ride it out.</p>
<p>Our trash was picked up today and we don’t have a garage, so I weighed down each empty trash can or recycling bin. A concrete block in one, a bucket full of hoses in another, a really heavy potted plant in another, you get the picture. Hopefully they won’t go flying!</p>
<p>H and I just got back from North Cape May. We drove down last night, spent the day cutting branches near the house , taking things inside, taking pictures for insurance just in case ( 
), and setting up pumps in basement. Ride back up the parkway was not bad, at least considering what the press was saying. As far as the evacuation–to clarify, it wasn’t that people had to get out by 8 am, but to start leaving at 8. we finished our work and got out about 2. Because so much notice has been given, people are leaving at different times, and there’s still plenty of time left, which is so much better than everyone getting on the highway at once.</p>
<p>That being said, several family and friends of ours are staying down there–people who mostly live on higher ground (not barrier islands!) we’re hping they’ll all be okay–right now it’s looking more like flooded basements than knocked down houses, and we pray it stays that way! </p>
<p>Back here in North Jersey–S was busy bringing in anything in the yard that might fly, and buying, filling water bottles, flashlights, batteries, etc. Should be interesting everywhere in the state–prayers that Irene takes a notion to head out to sea early!</p>
<p>Garland, great report. Amazing that Parkway wasn’t a nightmare! Philly news just reported update, it wasn’t ideal- Irene moving North- Northeast …ugh</p>
<p>Dang! Yeah–the Parkway was weird. we had 101.5 on the whole way, and they kept reporting backups in places we were sailing through. The only real slowdown was north of the Raritan! took us an hour to go 20 miles. We did appreciate the free tolls, though!</p>
<p>Good luck to y’all. Our forecast for tomorrow is sunny and 107. I wish you could share some of your rain with us.</p>
<p>Stay safe. And remember that hurricanes spawn tornadoes. Keep alert.</p>
<p>My kids are in Manhattan, near Times Square. They’re in Zone C, but only 2 blocks from Zone B. They’re frustrated because they tried to leave town today but all trains and buses (out of town, not local) and flights were canceled. They don’t know how to leave. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>If they’re in Times Square, there is no need to leave as long as they have a secure place to stay. Are they in a high rise? Then there would be danger from something blowing into a window and breaking it. So they should stay indoors, as far as possible away from any windows, such as in a bathroom, hallway, or kitchen without windows. I plan on hanging out if necessary in an inner hallway. All of my other rooms have windows. I’m not really too worried. I just hate losing power because then we have no water, and that gets old fast! Try not to worry.</p>
<p>They’re on the first floor of a 5 or 6 story building, but have a friend on the 2nd floor if they need to move up. They’re near 8th and 47th. Their biggest concern is the aftermath and finding more water, a flashlight and batteries. Every store they went to today was sold out.<br>
Thanks for the encouraging words.</p>
<p>Just a comment on flashlights for future storms. We have a Princeton Tec Attitude which I bought over ten years ago (they’re still sold). It takes 4 AAA batteries and has a run-time of 150 hours and puts out 30 lumens though the output decreases over time. I was pretty skeptical about the 150 hour claim but I did run it for 50 hours after I bought it and it worked. I keep this in my backpack and it has come in useful many times. Waterproof and rough too.</p>
<p>We also have two Streamlight ProPolymer flashlights. These are professional lights that are waterproof and designed for maintenance and utility workers. 4 AA batteries, 67 lumens and a run-time of up to 155 hours. We’ve had these for over ten years too.</p>
<p>We use rechargeable NiMH batteries. Storm preparation consists of recharging the batteries. In general, we recharge the batteries every three to six months when the flashlights don’t see much use.</p>
<p>BC:</p>
<p>There’s a new generation of NiMH rechargeables that don’t lose their charge sitting on the shelf. They are slightly lower initial capacity, but just the ticket for things like flashlights that don’t get used for months – or for just keeping batteries charged and ready to go.</p>
<p>i’ve been running batteries through the charger non-stop for the last day. i’ve got a massive supply of AAA and AA batteries topped off. The only thing left to do is make sure the iPod is charged up – although I guess I could charge it in the car if I had to – and grind a bunch of coffee beans in case I’m forced to boil water and make coffee on the camp stove. </p>
<p>Honestly, I think that this is all much ado over nothing. Probably won’t even get enough rain to soak in my fertilizer.</p>
<p>I was very happy when NiMH came along - previous generation Nicads lost their charge within a month. Three to six months on an NiMH is fine. We have the batteries on two flashlights fully charged and one set in the charger now. I have a spare set of batteries to charge but it’s not that big a deal when your flashlights can run 100 hours on a charge.</p>
<p>My son has his iPod Touch charged and I’m charging my iPod Touch. I also have the iPad on the charger (ten hours of light there if we need it) and laptops are charged. Phones are charged too. We have a very tall toll booth outside our house and I have never seen it without power so we’ll have some light in the front-facing rooms if we get a power outage.</p>
<p>I think that we’re under a tropical storm watch as the Hurricane core has dropped its speed by 10 MPH. That’s still around 70 MPH winds - which can be dangerous but it shouldn’t be that bad up here in NH. The track of the storm probably makes a difference.</p>
<p>I was planning on hitting tennis balls outside tomorrow morning before the rain comes and we’ll do a little grocery shopping tomorrow night. Our regular weekly shopping is early Sunday morning but it might be difficult getting out.</p>
<p>Gov Patrick declared a state of emergency for Massachusetts this afternoon and I think that there is the potential for a lot of damage in MA. Our Governor hasn’t and I don’t expect him to. I have a lot of confidence in our town emergency planning and we’ll see how well they do with this storm.</p>
<p>Reports yesterday predicted landfall in NC at 1:00 pm. I turned on the news at 7:00 am and they said it made landfall 30 minutes ago! Reporters on the scene (none decapitated by debris yet 
) are saying things there are holding up pretty well, so I, like I-Dad, am wondering if perhaps the catastrophic predictions were a little inaccurately dire.</p>
<p>Of course, time will tell what will happen once it hits heavily populated, low lying areas.</p>
<p>Alwaysamom - Yes, I am a Jersey Girl who moved with DH to Florida over 20 years ago. We have rented a place for 2 weeks every summer on LBI for the past 20 years and felt that now (that my youngest is almost out of HS) was the time to own and spend the summers there. </p>
<p>Our home, under construction, is built on pilings and is next to a very large dune which should help protect it from the storm surge but who knows? The windows just were put in last week and are supposed to be OK in up to 120 MPH winds (Andersen Storm Watch) but the siding is still at the plywood stage. At least we have no drywall yet (to get wet and ruined). I wish I had a camera to watch the house weather the storm. At least this storm will teach us how to reinforce the house to weather future storms. We are not in the area on LBI that floods (usually) with the big rains AND our house was built two feet higher than the neighbors (new code), and the ground floor foundation was NOT poured yet so hoping that comes through ok. I will repost sometime after the storm, when I hear from the builder (or a neighbor).</p>
<p>Saw this morning that NH has been downgraded to a Tropical Storm which is less of a worry now.</p>