Irene - Mid-Atlantic Prep and Impact

[capepoint]

Made it thru storm with no damage to my house, altho I had an island for a while. About 2 feet of seawater in my yard during the eye. 2nd half of storm was much stronger than first part. Southern eyewall was pretty intense for a cat 1. Clocked sustained to about 80 and gust of 91 when my anemometer went sailing off to who knows where. Was in the eye for about an hour. Power company got most of the power restored yesterday. Only a few isolated areas out now. All roads in Carteret County are open as of today. Eastern parts of county were hit terribly hard. Many homes had shutters ripped-off and some windows blown out. Many roofs stripped to the plywood and siding gone. Estimated 150+ homes and businesses had over a foot of water inside. Some places up to 6 feet of water inside. These are the same people that Isabell destroyed. It's really sad to see them dragging all of their stuff to the roadside again. I just can't imagine what it must be like to loose everything twice in such a short time. Then to add insult to injury, thunderstorms rolled through Monday night and soaked everything that was outside drying, and caused more damage from leaking roofs. FEMA, Salvation Army, and Red Cross are working in the area now. Several church groups as well. Things will get back to normal after a while, but for now we keep watching the southeastern horizon............

[WeatherLovingDoc]

Thinking of you and your neighbors and town tonight Capepoint. Hoping you all will get the assistance you need and the sun will come out and dry up all the rain.

[beoumont]

From the toot-one's-own-horn dept:

http://www.atmo.ttu.edu/TTUHRT/Irene.htm

Looking at the stick-net reports (above) I now feel good about my report to the NHC after Irene's landfall. I noted that my finger-in-the-wind estimate of the highest gust I observed in Morehead City (1.76 miles from the ocean shore as the crow flies) was 79 mph.

As I noted in my post earlier I was suspicious of the "trained storm spotters" supposed measured gusts of 105, 110,(or so) and TWC estimate of 115 mph. "These reports were likely the result of readings in KPH, the spotter driving into the wind at 25 mph while taking readings, inaccurate anemometer readouts, or ego-inflated reports" I submitted with my report to the NHC.

My 79 mph estimate might very well have been a few mph too high.
-----

Note: if moderator thinks this post should be in the Irene discussion thread, please repost there.