Irene

Our power went out around 3 am this morning. We could hear the wind howling outside. I was glad my babies were all in my room. I lay awake for a while waiting for a giant crack of the nearby trees, but luckily nothing happened. In the morning we were hearing conflicting accounts on our NOAA radios of the location of Irene. One report said Irene hit NYC at 9 am, and another said it was just barely at New Jersey. So we hurriedly went out in the rain and wind and secured down the generator in anticipation of Irene still making it's way.

I got to wear my new pink rain boots!

We got soaked.

Soon the winds died down...and we figured that Irene must have already passed, since the worst of the winds were over.

No trees in our house! There were just branches and leaves scattered all over the yard.

Later that evening we went out in the truck to see if anyone else got any damage.

A couple houses down from us was this uprooted tree...

and some just snapped over from the wind...

three houses down from us this tree fell over against the power lines...more snapped over trees in the yard three houses down...and behind these kids you can see more of their downed trees (still three houses down)...

We headed the other way about 1/4 mile and spotted this tree. You can see the roots out by the fence and the top of the tree stops short of the house by only a few feet...

down the road we take to get to church was another tree fallen over a power line...There were a few trees around that split right in half...down Kellogg road was another tree over a power line...

down Ruscoe Road was another tree over a power line and some dangling wires...We were lucky...very lucky. Not one tree down on our over two acres. Thank heavens.