Saturday was a gray cloudy day with a hint of things to come. They predicted around two inches of rain but we didn't get close to that - not even an inch. It was very quiet - the calm before the storm as they say.
I woke up Sunday to the sound of wind and rain, but not too bad. The intensity increased as the day went on. We got one really strong band of rain come through and it just poured!! Torrents of rain, but it didn't last long. They had predicted two or three inches of rain for Sunday too, but we only got a little over an inch and I think most of it came in that one cloudburst. The winds picked up in the afternoon, but no rain. We had gusts up until midnight last night when I went to bed.
By the time Irene had hit Rhode Island it had been downgraded to a tropical storm. Low lying areas by the coast had been evacuated and there was storm surge and high waves that crashed over storm walls. Over 300,000 Rhode Island residents lost power due to trees knocking down power lines. But I wasn't one of them. I never lost power or my cable service!
I was very lucky indeed. There were a lot of leaves down in my yard, even a few tree branches, but all in all I made it through Hurricane Irene unscathed. I was worried about the feral cats, but Miss Kitty spent most of the day on my steps which are under an awning that covers my patio. Even during the cloudburst, she huddled as close to my door as she could get and turned her back on the wind-driven rain. It didn't last long. I also had visits from Van Gogh and Romeo, although I didn't ever see Juliet. Maybe she was the smartest one. I was also worried about the trees, particularly my neighbor's tree with the hollow trunk where the raccoons live. All made it through just fine. Here are a few pictures of the aftermath.
For a couple of videos of Rhode Island's Hurricane Irene experience, click here and here. One video shows the effect of Irene the day before it actually arrived.
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