Good Night Irene.

Irene has come and gone.  I've got some mixed feelings on the visit.  On one hand, I'm glad that we got some rain - we've been needing some for a while and, frankly, we needed some to paddle on.  There has been a watering restriction in place for about two months.  On the other hand, we've seen some spectacular scenes of destruction in nearby areas and more significantly in Southern Vermont.  While wind was a minor component, the amount of rain beggars the imagination.

We probably received about 6" of rain here in about 12-14 hours while areas in Vermont received as much as 15" of rain this past weekend.  One nearby reservoir added 87 feet - yes feet - of water.  According to a local news report, they were filling the reservoir at a rate of 29,000 cubic feet per second!

A local stream had an all-time high for both gage height and flow, beating the previous height  by about a foot and flow by several hundred cubic feet per second.  That is only truly impressive when you realize that the previous flow rate for the stream in the days before the storm were about 28-50 cubic feet per second and the peak flow was almost 7,000 cubic feet per second.   In some places, larger rivers will probably continue to rise for days.

There are roads and bridges out in the vicinity and will probably be for some time making travel difficult.  Wilmington, Vermont was cut off from support due to flooding and washed out roads and bridges.

Power remains out in some places as is phone and internet service.

We were fairly fortunate here.  Not to make light of the situation, but this is the damage we had:

A wayward grill cover - returned to the neighbor three doors down.

One dislodged birdhouse. Returned to the upright position.

One damaged tree and a few sticks.  Sadly, the tree was a total loss.

We consider ourselves very lucky.  We were inconvenienced and our plans for the next few days have some minor changes.  However, we're all in one piece and we truly suffered no significant damages.  After last week's earthquake, I guess I shouldn't have tempted fate by asking, "What's next?"