Hurricane Irene

Last weekend, Connecticut took a direct hit from Hurricane Irene. We actually lucked out a little because by the time she actually made landfall here, she had been downgraded to a tropical depression. Still, we got a ton of rain and sustained winds and since we didn't really know exactly what we could expect from the storm, we took as many precautions as possible. We spent the day before the storm battening down the hatches at the new house. We covered the wide open garage doors with plywood, tied down parts of the structure with metal straps (literally called "hurricane straps"), put up temporary gutters to slow down runoff from the roof, reinforced our silt fences and added drainage pipes and hay bales to help reduce the effects of the major rainfall we were about to receive. Whatever we did seemed to work because the house came through the storm without an issue. The hillside behind our house took the biggest hit because it is still just bare soil. Thankfully the silt fences held up so we just have to push it all back up the hill.

There is still a lot of flooding in many coastal and low-lying areas in the state. Many trees fell during the storm, taking power lines with them. We lost power for a few days but consider ourselves lucky as there are many others in CT that are still without power, including my parents. Word on the street is that in some areas the power won't be restored until next week. One unfortunate side effect from this storm that will directly impact our building project is that the utility company was scheduled (previous to Irene) to come put in our utility pole this week. With all the issues with the power lines and many residential homes with existing lines needing attention, I imagine it will be some time before we see them. Bummer. Still, it could be worse. Below are a few short videos I took on my iPhone as we headed over to the house on the day of the storm to access the damage. Keep your fingers crossed that we don't get any more hurricanes this year!