Hurricane Irene!

We dodged the bullet on this one! We had a LOT of rain (about 6 1/2 - 7") and high winds last night, but even though the lights flickered quite a bit, we never lost power. Our sump pump was able to keep running, so our basement did not flood either. We did some quick calculations -- the sump pump continuously operated for over 12 hours from 10 PM - 10 AM (pumping every 2 1/2 to 4 minutes); pumped 10-12 gallons each time; this means we've pumped well over 2,500 gallons so far!! (And it's STILL pumping at 3 PM, just not nearly as frequently!) Glad it's pumping OUT and not flooding my basement!

However, there was a fair amount of damage in and around our community and town. Here are some shots from our drive today.

The main entrance to our community was blocked by an enormous tree that fell across the whole street, burying one car!






In the apartments near our house, we saw this large tree, which fell into the parking lot. Amazingly, it appears it fell between two cars, but didn't heavily damage either of them!!




Another tree blocking Montgomery Street in Laurel:




This one is a bit hard to see, but if you look closely, you'll see the bottoms of the guard rails are exposed. The side of the road washed out completely, and it's a VERY long drop to the stream below.




Miscellaneous shots around town:







A large pine tree took down power lines and a pole in west Laurel on Brooklyn Bridge Road:








Now the rain has stopped, but we've still got much stronger winds than I had expected. Let the clean-up begin......