Goodnight Irene - I won't miss Hurricane Irene

Didja ever spend a Sunday without any electric power? Hurricane Irene dropped around 5" of rain on her visit to the Big Town of Savage over the weekend. She also brought some relatively strong winds to the area.

The combination of rain water soaking the ground and the winds caused quite a few trees in the area to crash down from the roots and limbs to break from others; in many cases doing damage to buildings and electrical and communications infrastructure cables.

Sitting in front of the TV watching the race from Bristol Saturday nite, I thot sure the power would go off before the race finished. However, I made it thru the excellent Bristol Night Race with no problems and celebrated Kez's win in the Blue Deuce. Then I unwound a bit on the computer before heading to bed.

All the excitement started around 1:45 AM when I was awakened by the beeping of my battery backup systems on the computer and TiVo. All I could do was disable the alarm and hope the power wasn't off too long; then I headed back to bed.

To make a really long powerless day short, I'll tell you that power came back on after I went to bed for the evening around 11:45 PM. My only suffering was making my way thru the day without my best friends, computer, internet & TiVo/TV.

I did not open the freezer and only opened the fridge one quick time all day. I ate a lot of junk food, but didn't succumb to the temptation to visit a restaurant (I'm sure some were open for business altho a lot were closed). I even made a pot of coffee by heating the water on the stove and pouring it down thru the filter on the ol' 'lectric coffee maker (must be redneck creativity).

I did get bored late in the day and jumped in the truck for a ride around the area. Sun was bright and temps had cooled so I enjoyed the ride with the windows down. I wasn't singing "Goodnight Irene" when I went to bed, but the song occurred to me while listening to Bluegrass Country on WAMU-2 this morning.

I say "Goodnight Irene" and I can assure you I won't miss her.

JD here in rain-soaked BToS.

PS - Neighbor Lady's battery-powered backup for the sump pump failed allowing the basement to flood and possibly requiring new furnace and water heater. Wonder if she can sue the backup installer.

PPS - When power came on last nite, the pump fired up and cleared the water out of Neighbor Lady's basement. Ain't it wonderful having POWER, and I ain't talking about Obama Power either.