Hurricane Irene

[AJeepZJ]

I thought we should go ahead and discuss this ridiculous storm. Had to ancel all my plans. Now I have to find places to park the Jeeps. Not worried about flooding, i'm on 2nd floor. My window faces inside the courtyard over looking the pool - So i ain't worried about wind damage. This is officially my least favorite hurricane, I have seriously moved around all my plans.

[Sal-XK]

Have a hurricane party! All were worried about this far inland is the wind and rain maybe knocking out our power for a little bit.

[NeilSmith]

You're not in a good spot, bro. Are there and parking garages around that let people park their cars ? Norfolk does this, opens the upper floors for free. Norfolk has a lot of low lying areas. Does Greenville usually have flooding issues ? We are pretty much just concerned with downed trees and power outages. We aren't supposed to get a whole lot of rain. We're on the western side of the storm and the majority of the rain will be Richmond and further east. I always keep plenty of food and water on hand, plenty of batteries and flashlights and such. My issue is not having a generator to run my fridge and freezer and possibly losing food, that sucks. The best you can hope for is the eye to pass to the east of you like it looks like it will. You DO NOT want to be on that NE corner of the eye. We have a lot of friends down at the beach and in the OBX, a lot of friendly restaurants and shops too. We wish them all well.

[pjmjr508]

I wish for safety for your families & yourselves thru out this storm AND your XK/WK's lol

[DetroitMarauder]

Damn, an earthquake and a hurricane within a week. Good luck and stay safe.

[cico7]

Come on up AJ and park one here. We'll see some rain but that's it.

[AJeepZJ]

You're not in a good spot, bro. Are there and parking garages around that let people park their cars ? Norfolk does this, opens the upper floors for free. Norfolk has a lot of low lying areas. Does Greenville usually have flooding issues ? We are pretty much just concerned with downed trees and power outages. We aren't supposed to get a whole lot of rain. We're on the western side of the storm and the majority of the rain will be Richmond and further east. I always keep plenty of food and water on hand, plenty of batteries and flashlights and such. My issue is not having a generator to run my fridge and freezer and possibly losing food, that sucks. The best you can hope for is the eye to pass to the east of you like it looks like it will. You DO NOT want to be on that NE corner of the eye. We have a lot of friends down at the beach and in the OBX, a lot of friendly restaurants and shops too. We wish them all well.

Yeah, Greenville floods a lot. And the River runs adjacent to the city. There are NO parking garages in Greenville. The stupid reason behind this is that the soil will not support such structures. My family will be fine... they are all further east in Raleigh. I'm kind of the 'black-sheep' of the family. I like to be in my own city, lol. My Jeeps are 100 feet from the river bank. The Bank is a steep incline. Good news is that when the river starts to rise, it will flood north of the city before it will go south. I'm in the southern half of the city. And I can easily walk down and check on the status of the river and how much it rises because there is a bridge next to me... I'll try and grab some pics of all of this. If it starts to rise significantly I can take one of my Jeeps to the Government offices which is west of me and on a greater incline. I'll keep the other one and park it further up the bank. What I like about my current spot is it is the highest point in the parking lot and there will be very little debris to hit me.

[NeilSmith]

Damn, an earthquake and a hurricane within a week. Good luck and stay safe.
The earthquake epicenter is about 10 miles from me. We are still having aftershocks from that, the largest was 4.8.

[IamJEEP]

I wish for safety for your families & yourselves thru out this storm AND your XK/WK's lol


X2....I've had my fair share and it's not fun. Stay safe my brotheren.

[Sal-XK]

Finally got hit by the outer band it only lasted a minuet now where waiting for the main part

[Holaday07 4.7]

Good luck guys, Hope you and your families are safe through all this.

[AJeepZJ]

I was able to move both of my Jeeps on higher ground protected by a 3ft brick wall.. No trees or ridiculous signs all over the place ... I'm at the US Post Office. Sal You may recall this location. It's diagonal to where you pull in at the entrance of my place.

[AJeepZJ]

Here are a few pics....

View from my window.
https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110826_141146_776-1.jpg

Side of building closest to river. As you can tell it is really close.. Fall off the ledge, you will end up in the river.
https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110826_183814_686-1.jpg
https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110826_183758_810-1.jpg

Probably why they have the gate there, lol.
https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110826_183741_218-1.jpg

In this pic... on the left there is a boat in the parking lot with blue tarp over it... I had my ZJ and WK parked here.. with my WK between the boat and the ZJ. But then I realized under highwind... and possibly parking lot flood.. this boat will frick'n move and possibly smack my WK... So The thought of that bothered the heck out of me.. So I'm no longer parked in this lot.. I'm parked up higher.
https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110826_183749_408-1.jpg

[Matt]

Just took my friends boat out of the water. He's being evacuated as well. I might get evacuated (i think im going to be on the "edge" of an evac zone, which is close enough for me to leave!)

https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110826170937-1.jpg

[Sal-XK]

Well we all have one great advantage and that's some pretty bad ass jeeps to get us were we need to go or live out of. I'm glad I installed that inverter and dual batteries in the jeep. AJ I remember that your parking lot was the low ground good move on getting the Jeeps up across the street. Matt if your on the edge and have somewhere to go then just go man don't mess with it bro.

[Matt]

They have since derated the storm... we're pretty "safe" where we are now. I'll probably lose my direcTV and i have a feeling a few tree's in my front yard are going down... but i dont have to worry about flooding or anything. If we lose power for an extended period of time we'll shoot over to one of our parents house while everythings getting fixed

[IamJEEP]

What's the status of you guys in the path of the storm? Is everyone doing ok?

[HueyPilotVN]

Our plan was to spend a couple of months running up and down the east coast. We are going to sit this Hurricane out by staying here in West Virginia until it is all clear. I am supposed to fly to Denver for a two hour meeting at the first of the week but I think the flight might be cancelled out of Dulles Monday morning.

[Sal-XK]

I feel asleep and nothing was bad enough to wake me up. It was looking like we were going to get nailed but then it turned East at just the right moment the outer rain bands of the storm are 30 miles east of me right now.

[Matt]

I just got done moving my lawn furniture around and other small "prep" stuff. Though i think it's going to be a tropical storm rating by the time it actually hits us here (we're at the top of Cat 1 range now).

Starting to get some rain... glad i decided to take care of outside before my coffee!

[Sal-XK]

thats what we did yesterday put all the outside stuff in the shed. Were getting some strong winds right now just no rain.

[AJeepZJ]

There are easily 75+mph gusts out here... And I JUST heard a tree snap in half... Here is a pic of where my vehicles are.... nearest tree is 200ft from me.... All the debris from it is being negated by this wall... but there is a lot of tree debris on the roads.

https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110827_082936_58-1.jpg

[CmmdrDan]

Still waiting for it to reach annapolis. I think jager is getting it now. My parents picked the perfect time to leave for hawaii. Left a couple days ago and are gonna miss the whole shebang!

[Budasac]

Matt, where are you at. I saw they just declared an "emergency" in NJ for some reason. (not ny or ct) You must be south of me because it's not raining here yet.

[Matt]

I'm just south of Rt195.

They're declaring emergencies in all of the coastal regions (and evacuating) because they're expecting a high surge, lots of rain, and its all hitting during high tide (full moon too).

Not to mention they're REALLY trying to drive home the "Get out of here" to all of the vacationers who are obviously more reluctant to leave. The sooner they leave the better otherwise we're looking at major traffic delays.

[Matt]

Damn... lol just checked the weather again, it changed since last night. Now we're back smack dab in the middle of the Cat 1 range. Guess it didn't slow down as much as they expected. Last night we were at the very top of the Cat 1 range

[NeilSmith]

We are far enough inland ( 170 mile drive to Va Beach ) that we will get passed by , just a little breezy and a few small showers later today. Isabel came through as a tropical storm and really tore things up in '03 so dont take it lightly. We were at the beach 2 years ago during a hurricane, by the time it reached Va Beach it was a tropical storm. We didnt get evacqed at all. We walked on the beach with 45 mph winds and it felt like your legs were being sandblasted. These things are no joke.

[Sal-XK]

Well you guys have fun be safe it still looks like I'm out of the woods for now. AJ looks like you have hours left to go man.

[AJeepZJ]

Well you guys have fun be safe it still looks like I'm out of the woods for now. AJ looks like you have hours left to go man.

I do.. It sucks. We have a lot of street flooding and fallen trees on powerlines. So, the power has been flickering all morning. I just checked on the girls, and they are still safe. Someone decided to squeeze between the wall and my WK. Some streets are closed down.

[AJeepZJ]

Here are some more update pics.... Large tree adjacent to my neighborhood, is split in half all over the America's fallen :(... I'll probably help with cleanup on that.

https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110827_145645_511-1.jpg

Here is some debris in the street - this is all taken with my Droid and zoomed in. So I apologize for the crappy images. My girls are still safe, thank God.
https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110827_145705_653-1.jpg
https://theultimatejeep.com/images/imported/2011/08/20110827_145710_375-1.jpg

Going to take some river images later with my HD camera. But I'll have to put it in a ziploc so the images may not be as good as i'd like, but they'll be better than my droid :)

[CmmdrDan]

The wind is starting to pick up a little bit here. Been raining for a few hours now. Nothing to write home about though.

[Matt]

Rain got pretty heavy here... but no wind yet.

Seeing that pic of the fallen tree made my gut drop a bit. Reminded me of the storm that nailed my neghborhood a few weeks back and took down ~10 huge trees like that. I picked up a new chain, bar and sprocket on Thursday for my saw... hoping I don't have to use it, but there's 3 trees on my front curb line that I think are going bye bye with this storm (and taking the power lines with them):(

[CmmdrDan]

Matt what kind of saw do ya have?
There is half a tree kinda resting on our plastic shed out back. Might go grab the mower out of it and put it in the garage..

[Matt]

18" Stihl MS250c

Got such a work out a few weeks back that I discarded the "low kickback" chain for a faster cutting chain. 2 days worth of non-stop cutting... my scrawny arms were like jello afterwards!

[CmmdrDan]

Stihl is an awesome brand. Used to sell them when I worked for the lawn and garden company. Im trying to remember if that is the Ez Start..? I think the EZ start is 250CE..
that saw is perfect for home use. Powerful but not to heavy. I hated starting the EZ start saws though.

[Matt]

it is the EZ start.... and yeah... lol it sucks to start! i like some resistance so i can feel the engine turn over

[CmmdrDan]

They are great for someone who has a bad arm or shoulder. But if you are able then jesus christ is it hard! Its bad when you are starting it for the first time for a customer and you are having trouble with it!

[Matt]

I think its worse after trying to restart after running out of gas, when it takes a few good pulls to really get going. Then the damn thing kicks over while you're giving it a second pull and you're not ready for it, or changing the choke position. bah.

[EvilJager]

aj thays all you got? i already have 3 leaky windows on my 8month old home:( these builders suck. i knew i should have build my own house!

[AJeepZJ]

aj thays all you got? i already have 3 leaky windows on my 8month old home:( these builders suck. i knew i should have build my own house!

Let the house get a little older. Your home just needs to 'cure'... lol. Let it get older.

The other half of that tree in the cemetery snapped off. And there are two trees in the street from my view at the entrance.

[Matt]

So how's everyone doing?

It's getting pretty nasty here now. Moved the family to our 1st floor for a "slumber party" (we're smack dab in the middle of the tornado warning zone.... wind and tree's im alright with, tornados? not so much)

[CmmdrDan]

So far so good down here in Annapolis. Wind isnt too bad. Rain isnt too bad either. My girl wants us to stay down in the basement but I wanna be on the main floor so I can hear if anything is going on outside. Keep us updated Matt. Keep the little ones safe!

[Matt]

Damn thing is going to go directly over us.... it's supposed to be calm in the eye right? might have to stay awake till 3AM to find out.

We don't have a basement.. on a slab. But i set up our mattress and the pack&play downstairs where we have a 4' foundation wall. Safest spot in the house as far as im concerned.

Guessing we'll be losing power any minute now. According to the power companies website there's already 10k+ in our county out.

[CmmdrDan]

Well stay safe man.

[DetroitMarauder]

I don't think there is an eye anymore so you may not get that short "break". Good luck, hunker down and stay safe.

[AJeepZJ]

I'm good... just rain now. And my girls are good.

[Sal-XK]

Well you guys stay safe let us know you're good when you can.

[CT-riverrat]

Raining like nuts here, But thats all so far. It will be interesting come morning. Jeeps are gassed, chain saw is ready, I also have the kayak where I can get to it if/when my street floods. My house is up on a hill so all good here so far.

[IamJEEP]

Good luck guys, my prayers are with and your families.

[Matt]

Strangely calm here now.... and still have power...

[Budasac]

So how's everyone doing?

It's getting pretty nasty here now. Moved the family to our 1st floor for a "slumber party" (we're smack dab in the middle of the tornado warning zone.... wind and tree's im alright with, tornados? not so much)

lol. my wife opted for a slumber party as well. We all slept on the first floor in the living room. I was out on my porch watching the storm till about 2am. Nothing too crazy but this morningI went down to feed the dog and the basement is taking on water.

Also heard a "gurgling" coming from the basement drain which makes me think the sewer is starting to reach capacity. I don't mind some rain water getting in, but I'm gonna be pissed if the sewer backs up. So far it's just in the workshop. I have to go down every hour or so a suck it up so it doesn't reach the finished half.

[EvilJager]

she's a windy B. right now

[Matt]

Spoke too soon last night. About 10 minutes later the transformer outside my house blew up. No power since... but it looks like my trees survived...

[EvilJager]

Let the house get a little older. Your home just needs to 'cure'... lol. Let it get older.

The other half of that tree in the cemetery snapped off. And there are two trees in the street from my view at the entrance.that sux dude hopegully they will get it fixed soon. they said they wont do any work here till the wind dies down which is around noon for us

[CmmdrDan]

No problems here for me. Just woke up. Power is still on and no trees fell or landed in our yard. Glad everyone is ok.

[AJeepZJ]

lol. my wife opted for a slumber party as well. We all slept on the first floor in the living room. I was out on my porch watching the storm till about 2am. Nothing too crazy but this morningI went down to feed the dog and the basement is taking on water.

Also heard a "gurgling" coming from the basement drain which makes me think the sewer is starting to reach capacity. I don't mind some rain water getting in, but I'm gonna be pissed if the sewer backs up. So far it's just in the workshop. I have to go down every hour or so a suck it up so it doesn't reach the finished half.

I ALWAYS hated that about North East basements. Water gets through those cement blocks like porous sand.

[Sal-XK]

Is your guys waste and rain sewers on the same system up there?

[Budasac]

Spoke too soon last night. About 10 minutes later the transformer outside my house blew up. No power since... but it looks like my trees survived...

That sucks. I just found out my block is one of the few in my immediate area with electric. The streets on either side of me are out. At least I can still watch tv. But something happened to the wii last night. It won't turn on.


I ALWAYS hated that about North East basements. Water gets through those cement blocks like porous sand.

My house is about 100 yearss old give or take. It's been a battle over the years to waterproof it. I thought I had it locked down since it had been dry for a couple years. I guess this was more then it could handle.

[NeilSmith]

we were missed. a little rain, 1.88 in last 24 hrs. I dont mean this to be mean but I got soooo tired of hearing about NYC on the news channels. I didnt think it was going to do a whole lot up there to begin with. The news has always been more concerned with the large metro cities on east coast. They hardly even mentioned Va Beach and Norfolk area. OBX residents didnt seem to be too scared. Down this way and further south we have hurricane parties and we dont make too much of a deal over a small storm like this. Im glad everyone is ok, a little water in a basement is easy enough to clean up. A tree on the house is a different story.

[Budasac]

Is your guys waste and rain sewers on the same system up there?

No, not the same system. But in heavy storms I think one sytem either overflows and somehow washes into the other, or the treatment plant floods and the system backs up. IDK, I'm an electrician. All I know about plumbing is that **** runs downhill.

[Budasac]

And yeah, they went a bit overboard up here. I've never heard of NYC shutting down all public transportation. Or Jersey shutting down the Parkway south and eliminating tolls Northbound to aid in the Beach evacuation. No tolls!!! That's F'in unheard of. lol. We have Nor'easters here all the time, this storm wasn't that crazy.

[NeilSmith]

i just saw Al Roker say how NY was getting back to normal now. he was thanking all the crew and staff and acted as though the whole storm just disappeared. what about everyone north of NY thats also impacted by the storm ? its all about NY city.

[AJeepZJ]

lol - you guys sound so bitter, haha... There are many reasons for why NY is getting more coverage. Aside from the fact that it has evaded hurricanes for a VERY long time, it is EXTREMELY vulnerable to flooding. And lets not forget the millions of people, and thousands of businesses that comprise it. And yes, though it may not seem like it to you guys. In many ways it is still the envy of the world - and still represents a benchmark for entering the 'land of opportunity'.

As it pertains to me, I'm really a small-town kind of kid. Grew up mostly in the country, and some suburb - when I wasn't overseas with my old man. I've been to NYC once, but I actually prefer things slower and I like the secluded type deal. City life is too fast and stressful for me but I can see the appeal. You will not see coverage of your 150k population towns, lol. My county alone barely scratches it. I just hope everyon is safe - it is irrelevant to me where they are from. Anything beyond that, including media coverage, is of no concern to me.

[NeilSmith]

its not the city, its the half assed media coverage that sucks

[Sal-XK]

I said that to the wife the other day. We were trying to see if we would get hit and how hard it was hitting NC and all they would talk about and show was NY and they had like days to go were we had hours. Ya it pissed us off two.:mad:

[Matt]

I'm amazed at the widespread power outages up here. I'm borrowing my friends generator, but the numbers are quite staggering. We'll probably be down for 2-3 days

[Sal-XK]

I'm amazed at the widespread power outages up here. I'm borrowing my friends generator, but the numbers are quite staggering. We'll probably be down for 2-3 days

That stinks but at least you have some power now just make sure you guard it so no one taps into it.

[NeilSmith]

That stinks but at least you have some power now just make sure you guard it so no one taps into it.
or steals it

[Matt]

Yeah I have it in my back yard chained up to my deck... should be pretty safe there, especially living on a culdesac.

[Budasac]

or steals it

I know a guy who lives in Fla. and had his generator stolen after a hurricane. When he woke up the lights were out but he could still hear the generator running. He went out to check on it and found that some one had snagged his generator during the night and replaced it wiith an old lawn mower. lol He was pretty pissed.

[NeilSmith]

I know a guy who lives in Fla. and had his generator stolen after a hurricane. When he woke up the lights were out but he could still hear the generator running. He went out to check on it and found that some one had snagged his generator during the night and replaced it wiith an old lawn mower. lol He was pretty pissed.
LOL !! Redneck ingenuity at its finest !