Hurricane Irene + Mandatory Evacuation + Temporary shelter (limited wifi) + NO Z :(
 

Hey Everyone,
I'm very sorry for my lack of appearance on the forum last couple days. If you have reported a post (or posts), chances are they haven't taken care of them. I am truly sorry for that. Also if you have sent me pm, I didn't get a chance to reply to them either. I'm not ignoring you, I'm just going through Emergency situation right now.

As You guys know I live in East Coast (South Jersey). I was told to leave my house (my town) because of this horrible hurricane named Irene :shakes head:. It was mandatory evacuation with no "ifs" or "buts". Our governor literally flipped out on TV and said that it's VERY serious. So, on Thursday all day, I spent bringing everything to the 2nd floor as I'm 99% sure our Den area/media room (split level house) will be significantly flooded :(. I put wood plywood on the glass windows, prepare food for to eat during shelter, pack up clothing and food supply etc.

http://i576.photobucket.com/albums/s...0_812390_n.jpg

Friday morning, I evacuate the city along with my family. I am currently living at this hotel that's pretty far away from the shore. Wifi connection wasn't working all day. Today it finally worked but loading time was HORRIBLE. I finally was able to load pages later tonight and hence I'm posting this from wifi.

Hurricane Irene supposed to hit our city this morning (Sunday morning). It's still a catagory 1 hurricane. Last 3 hour we were given 5 different Tornado warning. It's just crazy right now. I'm hoping that Irene doesn't do damage like Katrina.

I usually street park my Z but during situation like that, there's no way I'll leave it outside (even outside my hotel). So, I parked it inside a enclosed parking lot away from balcony on higher floor. Hopefully Z is okay right now :( (I'm 20 miles away from my baby) Thank God I recently bought a beater car so at least I have a car for driving around town, evacuating etc.

So it's just waiting game now for Irene to pass our area. It's very nerve wrecking. Hopefully everything goes alright. Those who lives in Philly, NY etc, please be safe. First time since 1978 they closed down Atlantic city Casinos and first time EVER, they shut down NY subway. They are taking this hurricane very seriously :(. Stay safe guys.

Best of luck, hoping you get back safe to things intact.

be safe man

Ya hopefully you will be fine. I am in Afghanistan right now and my girlfriend and my wife=Z are in NC. Irene landed right on top of them, I live right on the coast next to the beach so they took a pretty good beating. My wife is parked safely in a storage unit so no dings or scratches for her from debris.

I'm still in shock that NYC halted public transit. Like AK said, that is a first! I hope this whole thing is blown out of proportion and passes quickly.

Stay safe Bud and I wish you and all affected the best :tiphat:

Best of luck AK.

All the best AK!

stay safe man

Hang in there!! I have family and friends in NYC, RI, Jersey, CT, and MA. Been calling them
keeping track!! Hopefully it's been blown out of proportions!!

Stay safe, AK.

No need for apologies AK. You all out East please stay safe.
I've been tracking radar for the last two days and this is one nasty storm. Hopefully, the ones that underestimated it are still safe.

well AK, sorry you had to pop your cherry on hurricane's like this...

we're porn stars down here in south louisiana on the whole boarding up, evac, recovery...etc.

try to stay positive, and trust me, it will all be OK in the end.

and remember, next time, you need to spray paint on the plywood---
"YOU LOOT, WE SHOOT!"

DITTO - Take it from someone who went thru Katrina. As Law Enforcement, I had to stay behind. So I went thru the before-during-and afterwards effects. This is by no means Katrina, only the panic running up and down the TV screens are akin to Katrina. It is still a really bad thunderstorm with high winds and plenty rain, but nothing on the order that these Media A-Holes are hoping it would be for their ratings. This is not to say treat it lightly - Precautions are needed. (It's probably on top of you from what I can see at the time of writing this post...).

See you on the other side safe and sound AK!

:gtfo2:IRENE!!

They had us all sooped up here in hunterdon county that the storm was gonna be rough. Epic fail on Irenes part. These were supposed to be the worst hrs for us right now and Im lookin out the window and it aint even breezy outside, nevermind high winds. Im sure south nj got it much worse. I was in wildwood thurs on vacation when the evac order came down. We got in the Z and left that evening after dinner. Good luck to those more adversly effected by Hurricant Iweak.<--- purposely misspelled.

Best of luck guys.

How could forecasters fail so bad? Regardless, let's just be thankful that it wasn't as bad as we all thought and there was little to no damage done. Let's move on with our lives.

Best of luck to you, AK.

update?

Thanks everyone for your kind replies. I truly appreciate it. So Irene finally passed our town and everything is okay. There is no damage to my house or any flooding. I was really nervous about flooding because I live in 100% active flood zone. My street usually gets flooded (like 4"-6") if the tide is high and it's been raining for a while. But we def. got lucky. We still have power and there were no interruptions. The only thing scared the crap outta me were the Tornados! But other than that, I think it was def. blown out of proportion. Thank God it didn't hit.

I came back to the house around 5pm today. Got everything settled in. I was DYING to get the Z back. I went to the parking lot and got the Z back around 11pm! Man, I almost gave it a hug! I was so excited to see the Z :happydance::driving: . I literally took it all the way to redline as soon as I had the chance :tup: .

But I'm VERY thankful for Irene not hitting us. Things could have been VERY bad but we got lucky. Hopefully other east coast forum members are okay too.

Glad to hear you made it through unscathed. I was livin in . Its just a downright scary thing.

Good to hear everything is Ok. :)

AK,

Glad you weathered the storm and that you came home to no damage. Those of us down here in eastern North Carolina certainly understand your concern and appreciate your willingness to be prepared for the worse. Thankfully my house and family weathered the storm safely as well. We lost one tree and the yard was littered with tree branches and other debri afterwards, but it's nothing that can't be cleaned up. I spent most of the day yesterday doing just that. The worse thing for us is that we lost power for 8 hours.

I know lots of people probably feel like the government and the news media made too much of the impacts Irene could have had on the Northeast, but I can tell you from experience as somone who has lived in eastern North Carolina most of my life that it is always better to be overprepared than not prepared at all. For me Hurricane Irene was not near as bad as prior Hurricanes I've lived through like Fran and Floyd to name a few. However, we still had 10 inches of rain and winds in excess of hurricane force for several hours. I'm just glad it was a Cat 1 storm when it came ashore rather than a Cat 3.

John

It is always better to be safe than sorry. Hurricane forecasting has come a long way over the years, but it is still an inexact science. All we can do is prepare for the worse and hope for the best, even if it inconviences some of us. Thankfully New York was spared from most of the worst of the storm, but many other places were not so lucky.

Glad you are Ok AK. We just got power back since Saturday afternoon and this area suffered real mimimal damages compare with other VA areas.