So far, no rain or wind near chez Maha. They are telling us the storm will be at its worse here from early Sunday morning to about 2 pm tomorrow afternoon. Tonight I plan to fill a couple of thermoses with coffee in case there is no power when I wake up in the morning. Obviously if there is no power I will have to budget laptop time carefully, but I think my batteries are good for at least four hours.
Again, I am no where near water, so I’m not too concerned.
It might interest you to know that over on one of the rightie blogs I monitor, sounds like they are positive hoping that Hurricane Irene destroys Washington DC and New York:
Is God Trying to Say Something?
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=192972
But personally, I expect that Hurricane Irene will turn out to be mainly a media event. If it indeed knocks out the electric power in New York, that only shows how far the USA has allowed its infrastructure to deteriorate. Why I say this: it’s a category 1 storm right now, and is expected to weaken to a “tropical storm” by the time it hits New York. The below link lets you track the storm in real time:
Hurricane Irene
http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at201109.html
Perhaps I’ll be proven wrong, and if so, apologies in advance. But if a sub-hurricane tropical storm manages to destroy New York, I’d hate to see what a category 5 would do.
I live in the typhoon belt myself, and have seen some real doozies. At the moment, we are “enjoying” Typhoon Nanmadol, though I’m not expecting it to be especially disastrous (as was Typhoon Morakot two years ago). Anyway, thinking of that “big earthquake” you had on the US east coast last week and how over-reported it was, and now how over-reported this “hurricane” is, and how over-reported most silly nonsense is (but how much important stuff never gets reported by the mainstream media), it makes me think of how dumbed down the new reporting business has become in general.
Anyway, sometimes a slow news day is a good thing. You know the expression, “no news is good news.”
I had to turn off the local storm coverage. It was giving me a headache. How many different ways can people say “nothing is happening yet”? They are pre-empting regular programming to tell us nothing is happening yet, and going on and on and on about it.
The storm center is off Ocean City, Maryland right now at about 4:30 AM. The sudden increase in wind woke me, here near Gettysburg, PA. Scary sounding, but not nearly what they are experiencing on the coast. Not as much rain as we were hoping for, either!
Those who may be hoping for the destruction of the evil cities of the East, will need to get over themselves.
This morning, I’m watching TV, switching channels, wondering what happened to all of the brave male weather idiots who used to stand in front of the ocean, being blown left and right, and shouting into the mic with a cameraman who drew the short straw, tellings us ***NEWSFLASH*** – ‘hurricanes are WET, AND WINDY! Look at the WAVES!’
What happened to them?
Now, everywhere I tune, there’s some poor female newbunny out there being being blown around. The surviving idiot male reporters must have moved up into management, and are seeking their revenge on every chichs who said said no to them in HS and College.
Oh wait, HAHAHA!!!
I found one guy on CBS. He’s doing the usual thing, pontificating about how bad it is out there on the boardwalk with the waves breaking on it, and how it reminds him of Gloria, and how no one, NO ONE should even think of leaving their homes, and as he’s showing Armageddon swirling around him, there, in the background, you see a couple of people walking their dog.
Are they dumb for doing it?
Probably, but nothing ruins the scary, scary weather, and the brave, brave reporter narrative, than a couple walking their beagle.
We’ll see how long I’ve had power. Stay safe, all!
c u n d gulag — I flipped on the TV for about two minutes when I woke up, and some channel was showing live video of a seagull walking around on a dock somewhere. That was all that was happening at the time.
Maha, here in piedmont NC, near Greensboro, we have come through with some light gusting wind and minor rain. Goatherd mentioned living in this area, and is probably fine too. I wanted to say that I hope you have a good battery radio. I prefer radio to tv for “companionship” because it is less repetitive and intrusive at times like these, though local meteorologist Lanie Pope’s fancy Doppler radar is unbeatable in times of tornado watches.
Anderson Cooper was just reduced to showing a few bits of debris partially blocking a storm sewer grate. I hope your experience is equally mundane.
Yes Bill, –not a Drop of rain and very light pleasant breeze. It was fun having friends call and email thinking we might get SWAK’d. At times like these I am grateful that I disco’d my TV. The radio provides enough information without dramatizing everything beyond recognition. (meaning, everyday events become apocalyptic. Hey, it sells stuff, I guess.)
Greensboro is a wonderful town (the “Paris” of the piedmont according to a close friend who lives there.) You’re a lucky man Bill, we don’t exactly have a cultural scene here. If a hurricane did hit, the biggest loss would probably be a Wal-Mart or something. Well, losing a Wal-Mart wouldn’t really be a loss would it?
Please don’t get me wrong, I know how serious a hurricane in the NE can be. Especially this year, where, with all the rain we’ve had, the ground is saturated, leaving trees more vulnerable than ever.
It’s just you need some levity in a situation like this, and it’s nice of our MSM to provide slickered idiot’s who aren’t smart enough to say “NO!” to a producer who wants them to stand in harms way, with video and sounds crews, all to warn people WHO ARE ALREADY AT HOME and watching on their TV’s, not to come out in the storm.
One of these days, we’ll be “treated” to a live shot of some poor schmuck standing out there on a boardwalk and see either a rogue wave suck them into the ocean, or a “STOP” sign behead them. I, for one, don’t look forward to that day.
Uhm, don’t you have any robots that you could deploy, and have someone safely in-studio describing everything?
Or, maybe we could have Wolf, and his “Worst Political/News/Weather Team on Television” all in the studio, with a wind machine blowing a gale, and hologrammed waves breaking over them, as the help hoses them down from off screen?
Too many of these TV numbskulls suffer from “Mucho macho!”
You can probably spot these people when they were kids – they were the ones who didn’t have sense enough to come in from the rain.
Some sand has washed onto the Asbury Park boardwalk! and some of the cement benches moved a few feet! Oh, the horror …
Cultural observation. In the South we prepare by filling up the gas tank because power may be out at the gas station. In NYC, this injection translates into making coffee in advance – for the same reason.
And a lifeguard station washed into the boardwalk at Long Beach Island.
OH, THE HUMANITIES!!!
I think the newsies are disappointed that a killer wave didn’t come and suck Staten Island out to sea, leaving the bridges hanging and blowing in the gale winds, for great photo-ops, so they’re showing things like cars stuck in water, or a reporter bravely jumping up and down on the boardwalks to assure the viewers that they’re safe.
If any of you have ever been on a NJ boardwalk, then you should know that you might be better off just jumping into that ocean and taking your chances rather than doing that.