Hi everyone,  we’ve decided to defy the mandatory evacuation order issued by  NJ Guv “Fatso” ( Chris Christie). yesterday for our Island  ( Absecon Island /Atlantic City.)  Personally, we  think this storm has been way over hyped by the MSM and the authorities, all of them.  The Weather Channel  or as  I call it “The Weather  reality show” is driving this thing and turning it into a circus. I’ve called friends down in coastal NC and they’re reaction is basically the same as mine. IRENE  is fizzling and not living up to media and Gov’t expectations so far , so instead, the hype and panicky public pronouncements by our leaders  is being amped up.  Now that the wind speeds are at minimal Hurricane force Cat. 1  not the Cat. 2 or 3 they predicted just 24 hrs. ago the threat of rain and storm surge is now being ultra hyped instead. Interestingly , the weather channels A team Jim Cantore and Ms. Stephanie Abrahams are now nowhere to be seen having been replaced by their B team of young geeks. Maybe, having  turned this into a an over hyped media Circus Cantore and the rest have now realized that this thing  is turning into a reporting disaster and are putting the geeks up front to take the soon to be  incoming pies in the face?

Anyway, down here at the Jersey shore me and my wife have put away the lawn furniture pulled up our few remaining awnings ( since the great recession we can’t afford to replace older worn out ones anymore)  and parked the car in the driveway on our now eerily empty street. We will await IRENE’s arrival later this evening here @ home. So far nothing to report but light rain and a 15 kt. south wind.

Its now 9:35 Pm here. We just went through a half an hr. of stomach knotting fear as one tornado warning after another for our area was  blasting from the TV.  We’ve lost one tree earlier in the day in our yard. Trees are going to be crashing everywhere as this beast passes through the area. Torrential rain has been coming down for a few hrs. Street flooding is already pretty bad in some areas.  I had to go by the beach    a hr. ago and the winds there were at least 15 kts. stronger. Back where I live a half a mile from the beach its still high and dry flood wise and the wind is being knocked down somewhat by all the buildings around us here.

11:41 PM here. According to Google earth the storm track will take IRENE right over my Island ( Absecon Island / AC) sometime Sun. morning. She’ll still be a Hurricane when this happens. Right now its raining pretty hard and the wind is a steady 30 -40kt out of the East.  Power still on. Reports of power outages coming in and trees down everywhere.  A tornado wrecked a bunch of houses in So. Delaware.  Everyone but me has gone to bed.  I’m trying to stay up as late as I can to be able to blog this.  This will be the 1st time a Hurricane has actually hit this area since 1944! That infamous no name storm ( before they named them) caused extensive damage to the boardwalk and  homes here. However, it was a bigger storm from the records we have , with much higher winds. Still this one is going to be over us right at a high tide ,  with a new moon ( higher then normal astronomical tide.)  I expect the major flooding to occur on our back bay areas and rivers. These areas are very low lying. Although, its somewhat counter intuitive its actually higher along the and near the beach front because of the way these Islands are situated geologically.  Back in 44′ we also had poorly constructed sea walls ( made from concrete) and many collapsed.  The Piers were also poorly built back then and many collapsed as well. Hopefully, better building codes and a wooden bulkhead the length of our Island with areas with artificial dunes in front of the sea walls will lower our damage this time. Wind damage however is another issue. Nobody has Hurricane clips in their attics so if winds exceed the expected 80 mph that will be a problem.

12:26pm  8-28 – The Aftermath. Honestly, as far as damage , flooding etc. is concerned this was a non-event. The scariest moment were the tornado alerts at 10pm last evening and they turned out to be wrong. The worst of this was west of the beaches and is still happening as the rivers and streams are now over flowing and the power is still off out there. Power never went off where I am. It did go off momentarily in Atlantic City just north of me. I stayed up till 1Am last evening and by then the Storm had for the most part already spent its wrath on us and was over. We have some rain and wind bands on the back side of the storm now coming through . People are slowly wandering back into town. We didn’t leave precisely because our call was it would be worse inland and that call is turning out to be the case. TREES and rain flooding the area are the problem. The ocean never was an issue as the surge along here was no pun intended as they say a wash.  Should the powers to be have evacuated millions in this? I don’t know but,  we decided the hype was over the top and stayed put. we felt better to ride thi out as we have hundreds of major storms much worse then this in their ferocity and duration and nobody ever though about calling for a mandatory evacuation. The evacuation was based on a miss reading IMO of the storm surge potential in this storm. It was NOT a KATRINA type situation, as the Mass media was making it out to be. The problem with the Weather Channel and its clones are they are selling Weather as entertainment. The authorities essentially displaced millions and placed many of them right in the path of the real menaces in this fresh water flooding from swollen creeks and rivers and downed trees and power outages as a result. The barrier Islands were actually the safest place to be in this, ironically. next time people are going to be less inclined to listen to them because IMO they cried wolf on this one.