Hello irene.

[Saygracenow]

Rain just starting here in central New Jersey. 1:35PM.

[Trish]

Rain just starting here in central New Jersey. 1:35PM.

Rain keeps starting/stopping here in CT. Going to be an interesting next 24 hours. Work is cancelled the next 2 days in anticipation of what may be. Not exactly the way I wanted to get a day off, but good to be able to stay close to home. Just hoping no trees fall on the house!

[esalv22]

It's been raining on and off on Long Island pretty much all day, but nothing too hard yet.

Be safe everyone!

[Wally C]

We have everything buttoned up here in Newport, RI......Sunday activities and work are canceled. Looks like something similar to Hurricane Gloria......rain and tropical winds.......You people closer to NYC and Philly will get worse conditions......and interior New England looks like a lot of rain.....stay safe everyone. I'm hoping for the best but expecting the worse......

[Doc Zinger]

Just had a thought, we don't get no hurricanes out here on the Northwest coast and it seems like lately no GPN either, so sad. But just the same hope all you east coastes come through the big one safe and sound, so you can keep on rockin!

[JackieinCT]

Good thing I have a generator or I wouldn't be getting any work done today and for an indefinite time. 50% of all households are without power today in CT.

[rte100expat]

http://youtu.be/a-QhPC8_Qx8

the Mad River Valley is getting slammed in a bad way with all this rain. I've seen quite a few vids and photos of the destruction and Grace shouted out on Twitter about an hour ago. Keep the folks and the beautiful landscape in this area in your thoughts and prayers tonight.

[kcortez]

Southern VT has gotten hit VERY hard. Lot's of flooding, bridges collapsed. I've seen reports of 4 wooden bridges destroyed. Wilmington, Queechee, Ludlow, Grafton. Many other small Vermont towns.

Queechee : http://yfrog.com/nsnl2z
Lower Bartonsville : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyO18one8fU&feature=youtu.be

[eric]

no electricity at my house or my moms (since 3:30 AM sunday), but magically there is almost everywhere else on Long Island, including my office :( (but not our marina? wtf)

kinda warped driving thru the north shore, no traffic lights, lots of downed trees and detours, random areas flooded, but somehow not my house. the really bad rain stayed just west of me. somehow. lots more wind damage in the area than i expected. trees down everywhere and tree crews are working around the clock (and at the pace of an olympic ice hockey team) to clear the roads. tidal flooding was an issue on the south shore and the north shore as well, but did not affect my property. at its closest the Nissequoge River was maybe 70-80 feet from my driveway.

the much bigger concern is up north, and down south. the Queechee bridge and the others referenced. sounds like VT got it bad from what I heard on the radio down here. a bunch of flooding in upstate NY too. What I saw on TV before I lost power in NC and Virginia looked ugly as well.

i am obviously happy everyone is ok. also pretty much ecstatic that the Martha's Vineyard shows were the previous weekend (which was beautiful for both fun and travel)! we just missed the earthquake and then the flood (GPN responsible for both?) that would have SUCKED. as you all know things were canceled everywhere, including both Sat and Sun of Dave Matthews Caravan NYC shows.

also happy for the south posse, somehow GPN simply crossed paths with the storm, survived an unrelated bus fire, and avoided cancelling any shows. Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia all got noc'ed on their asses. ask any of those people that were there if they give a fawk about a hurricane!

also sounds like Catherine drove from Atlanta to Brooklyn because the airports are shut down, and scheduling a flight even days from now is probably about as easy as finding a copy of Original Soul (Original Souled Out no doubt!)

pretty bad storm but things could have definately been A LOT worse, at least for Long Island. hopefully next time it's snow for VT and not rain.

[Xaphan]

I remember a video of Grace driving her pick-up to a small park on the Mad River and wading in. The water was so shallow she barely got her feet wet. Now I see video of torrents of water. I sure hope the covered bridge survived, and more importantly that everybody is ok.

[joester]

here's wishing you all the best in surviving the weather. be safe.

[eric]

6 of my friends were in VT for a wedding on Sat and they are now stranded there. they're being told it could take a week to get a commercial flight to NYC. now they are trying to get a helicopter and that's not really happening either. I saw a pic of RT 4 outside Killington and it basically looks like the Grand Canyon. they are being told driving anywhere, even 5 minutes away, is not an option anytime soon. not sure where they are but its right around Killington.

they are fuct and between all 3 couples they have 5 little children at home in NY with the grandparents. and one of the girls is pregz. if they make it back here by friday ill be surprised. and if they do it would be because they spend thousands each to fly, and leave their cars in VT. awesome.

[kcortez]

Eric - if they can get to Southern VT on the west side I'm sure we can get them to Albany and the train station.

[eric]

thanks KC and thanks for the emails.

[Snowbird]

This may have been a routine storm for some, but not so much here in Vermont. The massive flash flooding all across the state is "epic" and I'm not quoting Eric but VT's Gov. Peter Shumlin.

Thankfully, I am safe, high and dry even living in the Dam valley - a flood plain for Springfield, VT. The Black River has taken out big bites of Ludlow, the town I work in - couldn't even find a passable road to get to work today. The Black also flows past my house on it's way through downtown and on the the CT river. As I live just before the Springfield Dam, my property is now waterfront property, the cornfield that is a barrier between myself and the Black is completely underwater. So many Vermont river towns are hurting all across the state.

My thoughts go out to everyone dealing with the clean up, power outages, damage and destruction.

[eric]

worst storm in VT in over 80 years and so most of us have never seen anything quite like this, affecting that many areas. one of my friends actully claims they saw a house float down the street at some point.

My friends are stuck in Pittsfield Vt about 25 minutes from Rutland.

an entire wedding party (a different one than the one they were at) is also stuck in Pittsfield at a BNB and obviously looking to get home. among them is a 9 month old baby.

all roads out of Pittsfield VT are closed for approx 2 weeks.

i put out an email inquiry and KC came thru huge! he went "potter" on the heli search.

Thanks to Kenny Cortez, my friends' have a helicopter reservation for tommorow.

perhaps the biggest noc star of them all..KCortez THANK YOU. cant say it enough

[kcortez]

I'll wave as they fly overhead. Mission Accomplished! Sadly, not so much for the rest of us here. One of the most amazing sites I've ever seen is the water rushing through the flood chutes built in North Adams, MA about 50 years ago. Those of you who have been to MASSMoCA know what I'm talking about. Ugly concrete ditches that travel through the heart of the city. Well, those ugly ditches probably saved a town of 15,000 (including MoCA) from being totally devastated

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWB3azbOPGA

That's about 12 - 15 feet deep there in a channel that normal carries ankle high water.

[Karen_J]

Who would have thought that Vermont might get the worst of this? :(

[JackieinCT]

My thoughts are with all the band members and their families and the Posse from Vermont. Still lots of outages and damages in CT, but much worse in other areas and in Vermont right now.

[eric]

Who would have thought that Vermont might get the worst of this? :(

no one saw it coming Karen. the wedding parties that were up there all initially thanked the hosts for getting them out of NYC, where the storm was forcasted to hit hard. even my mother and step father were in Killington thru last friday (totally unrelated) we told them to stay up there to avoid the hurricane at home! thankfully they didnt listen and left friday.

my 6 friends and at least 6 others got out of Pittsfield yesterday on a helicopter to new jeresey

[Karen]

Age
the wedding parties that were up there all initially thanked the hosts for getting them out of NYC, where the storm was forcasted to hit hard ...
my 6 friends and at least 6 others got out of Pittsfield yesterday on a helicopter to new jeresey

If the bride and groom's initials are ML and JS, they are in the papers today. Associated Press report in a local paper here names them and mentions their narrow escape from a bridge collapse. That clipping may be an interesting adition to their wedding album. Pretty nice of eric to be so concerned and kc to give an assist.

I've been camping on the St. Lawrence since last Thursday, and followed the situation on XM radio in my car. They had 24/7 coverage, and gave a lot of air time to VT and MA - both in predicting and then covering the storm. We had really hard winds and much rain here on Sunday, with river waves that looked like ocean surf rolling ashore.

[eric]

they were on fox news tv

[HeathO96001]

they were on fox news tvEric - I've been following the story on the radio. I'm glad your friends are OK

[tipiboy]

@gracepotter
Grace Potter
Can't help but feel for all my fellow Vermonters. The floods have devastated so many. I'm working to pull something together. Stay tuned!

[Saygracenow]

Todd. Where are you?

[tipiboy]

Hey Mr Columbus! I'm in Vt ... Lucky as ever, no rain damage where I am thanks.

[Karen_J]

The North Carolina DOT has put together a high quality web page covering the storm damage to the Outer Banks region:

http://www.ncdot.gov/travel/nc12recovery/

Also, there is an impressive slide show of recent aerial pictures taken there:

https://picasaweb.google.com/100418429005758619418/NC12HurricaneIrene?authuser=0&feat=directlink#slideshow/5646327122831052226

Make sure you use the full-screen mode, if it doesn't automatically come up that way.

It should be fairly obvious from these shots why long-term multi-generation coastal families usually don't build anything out there bigger than a basic weekend cabin, and the more expensive vacation homes are usually built there by inland city people who aren't too familiar with the local history. Big storms have been moving these islands around for centuries, shifting them east and west, opening and closing inlets, and sometimes cleaning off an entire island back to bare sand (such as Hurricane Hazel in 1954). Nothing out there is really permanent except the herds of wild horses, because they are such strong swimmers.

A lot of people are pushing the State to give up on the idea of maintaining big, expensive bridges over all the inlets, and go back to relying mostly on ferries for island access (Ocracoke has never had a bridge to anywhere). It is easy, fast, and inexpensive to change a ferry route and relocate a loading ramp or two when the inlets move. And putting your car on a ferry is a lot cooler and more exotic way to go on a beach trip than driving across a modern bridge.

Some of these places still have no roads at all (mainly north of Corolla and north of Cape Lookout). You get around by driving a Jeep or 4WD pickup on the beach.

All this is so opposite from Vermont, where narrow valleys force too much water into small places. It's more like the NC mountains, where a big flood in 1917 destroyed most of that area's convered bridges, old mills with water wheels, and general stores from the pioneer days.

[Tedheadone]

My personal feeling is that whether it is the Outer Banks or Cape Cod, if your coastal home is destroyed by flood, you get one payoff for flood insurance. Cash payment and walk away. You want to rebuild, fine, but cash only with no flood insurance available. NO more Federal Flood Insurance for new construction or rebuilding. No mortgages w/o flood insurance. WHY do we keep rebuilding, with Federal Insurance, in flood zones?

And I say this as 1/4 owner of a family home next to a marina in the Town of Wareham, just off Cape Cod.

[Karen_J]

WHY do we keep rebuilding, with Federal Insurance, in flood zones?

I never have understood why so many people want to rebuild in the same spot, no matter who is paying the bill. If the flood waters came once, they will come again someday. Replacing everything you own must surely be a horrendous experience. Once would be more than enough for me.

New Orleans is the only place I can think of where it would be next to impossible to move to higher ground, without leaving that area. If I lived there, I would want to live on the second floor of a house, and set up the first floor as an apartment to rent out.

[Xaphan]

I agree about New Orleans. It is an economic imperative to have a major port at the end of the Mississippi which feeds from the Missouri and the Ohio. Tremdous amounts of cargo flow to the Delta, and then to ships around the world. Huey Long built a low bridge below Natchez, so NOLA is all we've got.