Monthly Archives: August 2011

Wrapping Up Irene…

All is well at the Garner’s! 

We woke up Sunday morning to find the water completely receded from the yard, and our little dock nestled up against the bulkhead, secured by only one pole, but floating within the other two poles, perfectly corralled.  We just don’t see this as a coincidence, it was too perfectly placed!  

The winds which never reached anything close to hurricane level, still managed to bring down a lot of smaller branches and so there was some sawing and chopping and raking that had to be done.  We never lost power, so we never had to delve into our emergency stock of dried lentils, dried fruit, peanut butter, tuna and water!  I suppose I know what Grace and I will be eating for lunch the next few weeks! 

Our church had cancelled Sunday worship earlier in the week, so we did some mild straightening up.  The front porch furniture was stacked in the foyer, so we put the porch back together, moved the potted plants back to their spots, swept, sawed, and raked some. We checked on our neighbors and they checked on us.  Then we spent the afternoon taking it easy, enjoying the sun, the blue sky, the water (staying nicely within its assigned boundaries!) thanking God, and reflecting on our many blessings!

We are back to school and really enjoying learning more about the Pacific Islands.  Grace’s favorite book is “Torches of Joy,”  a book about John and Helen Dekker, missionaries to the stone-age Toli tribe in Irian Jaya in the 1960′s.  I pre-read everything in her reading list before it’s assigned, and I enjoyed it very much, but I didn’t think she would.  I’m delighted to be wrong!  

 

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Goodnight Irene…

Aw come on!  You knew I was going to say that! 

Irene is not quite finished with us, the outer edge is passing over and the wind has really picked up.  Our little floating dock was lifted completely off all but one piling and is hanging on by a rope. We are praying that in the great scheme of things, our little dock will stay put, or at least not damage someone else’s property.  The wind has shifted strong and the water in our little inlet is blowing back up our yard and across the road, the bigger gusts (49 mph) forming waves with whitecaps.  Despite this the overall amount of the water in the yard is slowly going down. 

WVEC skies clearing over Norfolk...

Everyone is tired, and yet no one can quite decide to sleep.  The rain has pretty much stopped for now, so the leaks have slowed down.  The sump pump has finally started running.  Only occasionally.  It will be running for the next week or so once all of this water soaks in.  We lost power a few times, I could see the sky turn a glowing green when the transformers blew, but the power came back on again each time.  An absolute blessing that we thank God for, because many other areas of the city are out. 

We have been on the back porch quite a bit, just watching…praying…praising…thanking God.

Goodnight Irene…

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Waiting for Irene: Early Evening

She’s moving oh, so, slowly eastward and her eye is back out to sea, but the counter-clockwise movement of her winds is, as predicted, pushing the waters of the Atlantic back up into the Chesapeake Bay, which in turn overflows the many rivers that wind their way through Hampton Roads and Coastal Virginia.  Virginia Beach is just past high tide, we still have about 45 minutes to go before we are at high tide in Norfolk.  The water is way up in the yard, but the sump pump has not cut on yet!  Still fairly dry in the basement – at this rate it will pour in the basement windows before the ground water swells up…

Here are some photos – YIKES!  The first two photos were taken around 6 p.m., the photos with higher water were taken around 7:15,  It’s now very dark outside, and the water has continued its advance. 

The ducks that normally park in our yard are very confused! They are floating in the water just over the spot in the yard where they normally take a break. 

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Waiting for Irene: Early Afternoon on Saturday

It’s noon on Saturday, and Grace, so far, is very unimpressed.  “This is just a rain storm…” she stated with disgust.  This is my “extreme weather” daughter who has watched all of the weather-related videos available on NetFlix several times, and loves to check Weather.com first thing every morning.  Greatly anticipating her weather.com debut, her plan is to record our extreme hurricane experience to post on weather.com.  Alas, nothing we are experiencing so far is worthy. 

The wind is picking up – the internet has gone out once, but came back up.  A smallish branch has fallen from our neighbor’s pecan tree (loaded with pecans), and our oak has dropped a small branch as well.  The news is telling us that we are having 65 mph gusts.  I’m not sure we’re quite there yet. 

The tide is going out, so while the water will not completely recede, it does go down a bit, which is just a tad reassuring.  High tide is tonight a little after nine p.m.  Might be a little tricky getting a photo…;)

We have a leak in the Living Room.  Every storm brings us a new adventure in caulking, and the leak shifts to a new hiding place each time.  It’s a game of cat and mouse, and you know how that goes!  The mouse usually wins!  The other typical places aren’t leaking yet…

Tracking Irene

The National Hurricane Center’s 2 pm report and the newest track of the storm seems to indicate that Irene is not taking the Northeasterly turn we were counting on.  For the last three hours, it has moved North, but not east.  Norfolk is directly north of Irene’s current eye location.  This is not good news because it will push more water up into the bay which equates to worse flooding, we’ll have more rain and the worst winds.  Our hope is that the eye will turn easterly and actually be off coast when she moves past our area.   

We take comfort in the knowledge that our house has been here since 1919, and weathered worse storms than this!  Our generator will keep our sump pump going, although, so far, the basement is still quite dry even after several inches of rain in the last few hours.  This is very different from previous storms. 

For some pictures of what downtown Norfolk looks like, you can check www.wtkr.com.   Remember that the media thrives on drama and will show only the most extreme situations.  Downtown Norfolk, is very low, in some cases lower than sea level, so it is a little worse than where we are, see below.

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