In the Eye of Irene: A Survivor's Story

First, a disclaimer: Communities all along the East Coast suffered serious damage from Irene, and I don't intend to diminish what they are suffering by making light of my experiences. But the whole thing was such an anti-climax it is hard not to see the humor in it. Without further ado:

After very reluctantly canceling my trip to DC, I set about preparing for the hurricane. Between what I read and tips from concerned friends (who kept calling and texting and making me even more nervous), I knew that I needed to close all my windows and bring everything in from my fire escape. I wonder how many people have had to move a garden... This was more for the benefit of people walking below, as my plants are pretty much done for the season. I also moved my laptop away from my window, thinking that if anything broke through, I didn't want it to get water-logged. I was glad I had sprung for renter's insurance several months before.

I had decided to spend the weekend at Ed's apartment, which is an infinitely nicer place to hang out than mine, though it is lower (both in terms of the floor it's on and it's geographical altitude) and therefore perhaps a regrettable choice. In fact, technically he lives in a zone that was marked on a map as at risk for flooding if the storm was enormous. We were betting that it wouldn't be. I packed candles and matches, non-perishable food, board games, and rain boots, and headed over Friday night. On Saturday morning, we eventually located a restaurant that was actually open for breakfast, though they were closing at 11:00 that that morning.

Nasty Pig, supplier of edgy clothing for gay men, was also closed, as were most restaurants, bars, and stores in the neighborhood.

After eating, we walked to Whole Foods to pick up supplies. No such luck. It was closed until Monday. The only places open were neighborhood bodegas. As you can see below, we weren't the only ones who waited until the last minute to shop. There was quite a lot of selection, though - none of those empty shelves I keep seeing pictures of - so we chose hummus, cheese, and other things that wouldn't need to be cooked and headed back to his apartment to wait it out.

 Just as we left the bodega, it started to pour rain. Here we go, I thought.

Pumps outside Ed's building, in anticipation of flooding (minor flooding based on their size).

 Just as quickly, however, it stopped. Odd. I had expected a steady escalation. Still, we prepared for the worst, by filling Ed's Brita with water, digging out headlamps, etc. Todd, Ed's cat, supervised my filling the bathtub with water, useful for flushing toilets and the like if water supplies suddenly shut off.

 We watched a movie, then peered outside. Nothing seemed to be happening yet (it was around 3:00), so we decided to take a walk.

Pre-Irene, there's less traffic on the road and on the sidewalks.

It was interesting to see the ways some people had prepared for the storm. In my neighborhood, people were buying sandbags, which seemed ridiculous since we're somewhere between 50 and 100 feet above lower Manhattan. My street is actually sloped. It seemed to me that the water wasn't going to be doing much pooling up. We walked through Ed's neighborhood to the Hudson River, where there was more legitimate cause for concern.

Some precautions, like this waterfront building, looked reasonably effective. They'd secured plastic sheeting with a solid, and attractively painted, board and propped that up with sandbags to prevent water from seeping in through a vent.

Some was less effective. I'm not an expert, but shouldn't the caulk follow the bottom of the door, like, all the way along?

We saw a lot of taped windows, even some in a parked car! These guys did a good job, but the tape on a restaurant right around the corner from Ed was already coming off the windows hours before it even started sprinkling.

It was raining on and off, so we decided to head back, play Scrabble, watch a movie, and eat dinner. By the time we went to bed, it was sort of windy and still not raining much. 

The next morning...it was already over. Right after waking up, I noted that the air conditioning was still running and all the clocks were still set: We hadn't even lost power. Things outside looked a little worse for wear, but hardly. This fence was in better shape before the storm, which apparently came through around 4:00 A.M. I noticed that a bucket on someone's fire escape was knocked over. 

 We turned on the news, and watched newscasters desperately trying to make the situation in the New York area seem more dire than it was. They warned us to stay inside. So after breakfast, we went for a walk. Below is a picture of post-Irene Chelsea. Look familiar?

Although we were underwhelmed at first, we did notice damage that was at least worthy of a double take as we went on.

Leaves! Blown all over the sidewalk!

Pumping out a flooded basement. We saw this in a few places.

It was VERY windy, but only in gusts that lasted less than a minute. 

This impressive barrier wasn't needed, but it looks like they'd have been ok even if the nearby Hudson had decided to overflow.

Overwhelmed by the extent of the flooding.

Most trees seemed to have held up pretty well. This was the biggest branch we saw down.

All public transit was canceled until Monday morning, when it came back up in time, alas, for people's commutes. It may be just my imagination, but I swear the tracks look cleaner than they did before the storm.

We went out for dinner that night with Maggie and Leonard, and the restaurant didn't have several of the things normally on its menu because it hadn't been able to get any deliveries on Saturday. Similarly, the fruit stand I often visit on the way to work had only some elderly bananas and very sad looking apples this morning. Everything feels pretty normal by now, though. It did seem like a bit of a let down after all the hype, but at the end of the day I suppose I should be thankful that I wasn't blown away by Irene.