You're sweet to say that, 7points, thank you. We'll be just fine. We're smack in the middle of DC, not vulnerable to flooding and not going to see hurricane-force winds.

Probably won't even lose power (our lines are underground).

It sure has been an interesting week around here: once-in-a-lifetime earthquake on Tuesday, once-in-a-decade (maybe) storm and I was in the path of a tornado warning Thursday evening.

Next week likely will seem dull.

Unless an asteroid lands inside the Beltway....

Yeah, northwest DC and Montgomery County, Maryland, have had many inexcusably bad experiences with PEPCO in recent years (argues against monopolies). I hope your sister lucks out this time. Fortunately, the 10-day forecast is pretty decent and temps will be mostly in the 60s at night. Low to mid-80s during the day and since they're showing no rain for the next several days I'd guess it will be less humid, too.

Doesn't help with the refrigerator, though.

Old Dominion in Virginia has been better but a friend across the river in McLean still had a backup generator installed a couple years ago (big enough to cool a 10k sq ft house). There were just so many outages she was tired of losing everything in her fridge and freezers.

Hopefully PEPCO was giving your sister the worst-case scenario and the power will be back on more quickly.

Best wishes to her.

Odd photo #1

We just went for a walk along the Brooklyn promenade, about 35-40 feet above the East River / NY Harbor. Only boats on the water were the last of the Staten Island Ferries, USGC Safe Boats, and NYPD Harbor Patrol.

And the I saw this:


Irene cruise ship

That's a cruise ship docked at the Red Hook cruise terminal. Red Hook is smack in the middle of the evacuation zone, and I can't imagine why the ship would not have put out to sea to run from the storm. At top speed, I would have thought they could at least outrun the worst of it if they had wanted to. Now, I think it's probably too late!

Thoughts?

There are still ships as of 3:45 EDT sailing by Battery Park to get out of Dodge, so it apparently not too late yet.

Is there a reason behind that or just pure bureaucratic insanity?

I get along very well with cops in general and the local cops in particular, but this is something that would probably cause me to react less well if the sick baby didn't change his tune. "Write me. See you in court."



I hope she comes through it without any damage.

It sounds like Irene was completely overblown by the National Hurricane Center, media and government. It's come ashore with winds that aren't even Tropical Storm strength.

NOAA's Phony Hurricane
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/...h-33-mph-winds/

I can't wait to hear how the government saved thousands from this devastating major storm!

I normally would not respond to something like this, and I don't mean this in a disrespectful way, but I think the website you quoted is a crock. I'll let the people who are going through the storm right now tell you how "weak" it is. I think its potentially irresponsible to post garbage like this in the middle of a disaster where it may cause people to ignore official warnings and not take appropriate action. We can all argue about the politics of reporting after the storm is over, but until it is, I would not question official sources.

People are dying. It's a hurricane. All hurricanes are a big deal, especially when they are bearing down on population centers comprising 60 million people.

They are also not entirely predictable, despite improved monitoring technology.

If the government low-balled the threat, there'd be a huge outcry. The media hypes everything for ratings.

Reserve judgment until Sunday when the damage assessments start taking shape. We're not supposed to see the worst of it until after midnight. Virginia is experiencing worse storm surges than expected.

A friend near Annapolis just texted that her power went out two hours ago and a tree just now fell next to her house. Going to be a long sleepless night for a lot of people around here -- especially east of DC toward the Chesapeake Bay and the ocean.

There have been numerous comments to the effect that, although the wind speeds of Irene have been dropping, the large extent of strong winds still poses a real threat.

Please bear in mind that government sources have been accurately reporting the changes in wind speeds and do so routinely for this and any other hurricane. Does anyone know where to get better information?