Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Post Hurricane Irene Reflections


At last we have power back at our home. That's the good news. The bad news is that the main A/C compressor isn't working. Hopefully, its a blown capacitor or something minor. In the meantime, it's more nights with no A/C until we can get a service call from a heating and cooling contractor. Otherwise, the house is pretty much back to normal and all of the furniture, artwork and the boyfriend's glass and china collection is back on its usual display. The photo below shows the extent of the water intrusion on the first floor over the marble flooring and composite trim work. Thankfully, because of the work we had done in 2009, nothing impacted by the water was water absorbent, so nothing need to be repaired. It was simply a case of mopping the place out with a Lysol/water mix and getting up the silt on the floors. That's not to say t was my idea of fun, but compared to what others up and down the east coast have experienced, we got off easy.

If I have one principal complaint against the local municipalities - including the City of Hampton - it is that they failed to impose a strict curfew that got idiot joy riders and would be burglars off the streets. At the height of the storm, we had morons in jacked up pickup trucks blasting down our block sending waves of water to slam against already water surrounded homes. Worse yet, it is my belief that some of the joyriders were casing homes that were unoccupied looking for places to burglarize. Our next door neighbors - who had survived Hurricane Katrina and moved to this area after that traumatic experience - returned home on Sunday only to find that their home had been broken into, quality items stolen and the place ransacked. As best we can estimate, the break in occurred sometime in the wee hours of Sunday morning as the backside of the storm still raged.

I sincerely hope that come the next serious storm Hampton and other cities will impose a total curfew except for those working for police and emergency services (and those able to document they are on their way to work) with serious fines for those violating the curfew. The photo above shows one such jacked up pickup blasting through bumper high water before the worst of Irene even hit (For the record, in my view, driving a jacked up pickup speaks volumes about either one's reduced IQ or one's decidedly redneck qualities).

P.S. A bunch friends helped us upright the 15+ foot cherry tree int he photo below and stake it back in an upright position. The roots appeared unbroken and hopefully it will survive.



No comments: