Irene

10 years ago today, we experienced a weather system like no other in my lifetime of 38 years here in my small state of VT.

A weather system that caused massive flooding and damage throughout the state.

That system, Hurricane Irene.

Of course by the time it reached us inland after landing for it's 9th time in the Brooklyn/Coney Island area, it no longer had it's Hurricane status (it was a 3 but came up the east coast and weakened in the colder water) but it packed more than a punch. I, at the time, brushed off the idea of having such a system here. Didn't think twice about the damage it could do until I was driving in it.

My wife had just gotten out of the hospital in NH and we were released the day the storm came. The hospital did say that we could stay a little longer if we chose to do so, but said they were no longer responsible for us if we did. So we figured if we had to take care of ourselves anyway, might as well do it in the comfort of home.

Let me tell you, I wished we had stayed.

On the ride home, we saw water across roadways, branches everywhere and winds you could feel make the car move. It was predicted we would get 3-7 inches of rain and up to 45 mph wind speeds which probably doesn't sound like much to those of you who live in Hurricane areas, but here, that's quite a bit.

The scariest part of the trip was trying to come up our driveway. We have to cross a wooden bridge at the end of our road to make our way home and the water had almost reached the top of it. Picture driving your car on a surf board down a lazy(but raging) river. That says a lot for a usual low riding brook that you can see the bottom of. So we said our prayers, cried and crossed that bridge safely. It's a good thing to, within an hour it had not only surpassed the bridge but had flooded the lands and road around it.

I wished I had saved some of photos to my phone to share in today's post of what that looked like. It was mind boggling.

When I saw there was a card in 2011 Topps American Pie that featured the storm, I had to snag it.

 

Despite those memories never going away.

That day, almost every stream and river in the state flooded. Houses floated away, 100 year old bridges fell to their demise. Cemeteries near water were torn apart with loved ones having to figure out who was who. The storm decimated roads and costs for the state were close to 200 million to fix the overall damage. It was a lot of damage in a such short amount of time.

I look at the storm as a lesson, don't ever underestimate the power of weather.