Hurricane Irene

I'm posting this from my Blackberry douchephone sitting on my couch surrounded by candles with no power. The hurricane is almost gone from Virginia Beach now, only a few gusts here and there. The streets in my subdivision are under water everywhere that leads in or out. My street is fairly "dry" relatively speaking.

Comparing this to other storms and hurricanes, this one ranks well behind Camille, Isabelle, Floyd and comes closest (but still behind) the 2009 Nor-Easter. We had plenty of rain, but the winds didn't reach the strength hyped by the Weather Channel cheerleading squad. My unofficial guess, for my immediate area only, was 20-25mph sustained and gusts up to 45mph. A few tail-end gusts might have reached 50 or 55mph. A few tree limbs down, but far less damage overall than 2009.

So, we heard 750,000 are without power in the area of Northeast North Carolina into Hampton Roads (Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Williamsburg, Yorktown, etc.) Or roughly 3/4ths of the area. That includes our street too.

We have food, water, propane tanks, charcoal, and plenty of beer. Our water service is functioning also, so we aren't anywhere close to being Somalia. My dog picked a perfect time to have gas. Windows have been closed to fend off the humidity, but now they're all open. Thanks dog!

Anyhow, we're ok. I hope everyone else is ok too. For now: lots of family bonding, talking, playing acoustic guitar and tweeting. Cheers!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry