Hurricane Irene

Unless you live under a rock, you know that this past weekend, the eastern part of the United States suffered the effects of Hurricane Irene. By the time it reached us here in the Village it had been Tropical Storm with a lot of wind and rain. Many people in our local area, including yours truly, lost power and some of them still do not have their power restored. All in all I would say we were lucky.

It did not take long for people to start blaming the media for hyping up the storm and making people afraid. I have heard stories of folks in New York who are angry at Mayor Bloomberg for all of the precautions he took and evacuations he ordered. Well as a former Boy Scout I would much rather over react then under react.

Following the advice of the Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts we canceled church here at St. Michael on Sunday and everyone just stayed put, safe and dry. As the day wore on and we could see that for us anyway, the storm was not going to cause much damage I ventured out to see what was up. We did get some water in the Church, but that is not uncommon for a rain storm of this magnitude but other than that no damage at all.

I did find it fascinating that after the storm had passed is when the cable and the power went out. I do remember the weather folks saying the worst winds would be on the south side of the Hurricane, and I guess they were.

There was some loss of life from this storm. I am not sure of the details of all, but I know some of them did not have to happen if the people had only heeded the warnings and stayed off the road. Here in the Village we had the only thus far reported death, and that happened just this morning. A worker from the DPW was electrocuted on his own porch by a downed electric wire that he did not see. This just reaffirms to me how serious safety is before, during, and after and event such as this. He was on his was to remove tree limbs so residents could have their power restored, I find this ironic.

Our neighbors to the west and the north were not as lucky as we were. Last night, the TV news, was full of images of Brattleboro, Vermont under water as the banks of a nearby river overflowed. Several communities in the Western Part of Massachusetts suffered the same tragic events as Brattleboro had. For those of us who have been inconvenienced with lack of power and cable we have much to be thankful for.

So in the end I for one am glad the media told us to be ready. One thing that I always try to keep in mind is that it is called weather forecasting and weather predicting not weather certainty. It could have been much worse here then it was and I am glad I was ready.