We have been so fortunate. Hurricane Irene was a non-event for us. One of my readers asked me to define the 'hill' I talk about where our house is located. We live in the shadow of Cannon Mountain which is about 3,500 feet in elevation and on the border of Franconia Notch State Park. Cannon is Bode Miller's 'home ski mountain', and one of New England's premier ski areas. Our 'hill' is 1900 feet in elevation, and Franconia Village which is 3 miles down the road is 900 feet in elevation. When we go to Franconia, you can 'coast' all the way. Some of the 'grades' on the way to the village are 12%.
The Pemigewasset River headwaters are a few miles from our house originating at Profile Lake inside the state park. Cascade Brook joins the Pemi which flows into the Gale River (the river with the iron furnace on it in the center of Franconia). The reason I'm detailing all this water is to give you the understanding of what is happening with the flooding in Vermont as a result of the water dumped in the area by Hurricane Irene.
If the path of Hurricane Irene had been 50 miles to the east, we would be having major flooding because of these small streams, medium rivers and large rivers that all flow downhill joining the Connecticut River (which runs the length of the entire border between Vermont and New Hampshire and beyond into Massachusetts and Connecticut ) and then out into the Atlantic. Our area got 3 - 6 inches of rain over a 24 hour period - steady, but not terribly hard. Meanwhile, 50 miles to our west (Vermont) got 6 - 12 inches of rain over the same period. All these rivers and streams started roaring and overflowed their banks, destroyed bridges, cut power lines, and washed out roads leaving islands of people stranded inside their houses inside their towns. Remember, lots of towns in New England are like Franconia - hydro power was the engine of their factories and industrial processes and pretty large streams flow right through them.
Today, we decided to venture out and do a hike that follows the path of one of the streams inside Franconia Notch State Park. Drake had done this hike prior to the hurricane, but this was my first time on the hike. Drake estimates that the amount of water in the brook and the river tripled from his last visit as a result of the hurricane.
I also have thrown in the pictures of the trip to Lost River Gorge. We did this last week prior to Irene. This is an area where an unknown River (why it's called 'Lost' )runs through a huge granite gorge. In the 18th century one the of "Kinsman" boys, an early pioneer family in the area, fell through a hole and discovered this natural attraction. It wasn't long before the Kinsman sons were attracting tourists and charging admission to view the gorge The pictures tell the story, as always.
Today's hike is the first link and last week's Lost River Gorge trip is the second link. You will see 'high water' in the Lost River Gorge pictures which helps understand why Irene was so devastating in terms of flooding - we've had record rain for August prior to the hurricane.
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2011NewHampshireTour9TheBasinCascadeBrookHike?authkey=Gv1sRgCN-aj7C4o6_erAE#
https://picasaweb.google.com/jalyss1/2011NewHampshireTour8LostRiverGorge?authkey=Gv1sRgCI3w-fCJ1rOgfQ#
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Hurricane New Hampshire
I lived in New Orleans for almost eight years, and the year Sarah was born there were three Category One hurricanes that hit within 50 miles of New Orleans that September. A standing joke in New Orleans was that there was a 'baby spike' the day of the hurricane and........nine months later. Actually, a big barometric pressure drop can bring on labor in an almost full term pregnancy, and as to the nine months later...........this is a G rated blog - well, mostly, so use your imagination.
The reason I bring up New Orleans is that one of the things I took away from that city was a healthy respect for hurricanes. I saw many 'little ones' up very close and personal. When you look out the window and the rain in blowing directly into the pane and the trees 10 feet away are bent literally double, it's a spooky, scary sensation, AND that was a Cat One Hurricane. What I didn't expect was to have to draw on my NOLA storm knowledge in New Hampshire.
While Texas has sweltered and baked this summer, up here we have had, especially in August, almost daily rain. It's been really lovely, but the ground is saturated and spongy. The trees have sucked it up and put out a leaf canopy that fills the mountain sides. We have been expecting it to be an outstanding autumn. All well and good until along came Irene.
I like to think of it as "Hurricane New Hampshire". First, people here talk about four hurricanes: The New England Hurricane of 1938 - yes, that was it's 'name'; The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, Gloria in 1985, and Bob in 1991. They generally have in common a large number of people hurt or killed or the hurricane was a Cat 2 or 3. I checked and surprisingly, there have been many, many more hurricanes in New England over the centuries most of which were not really memorable in that they didn't kill a lot of people and mostly were limited to weak Category 1 storms that passed through the region pretty quickly. Irene looks to be a different kettle of fish in that it follows the New England pattern of being 'weak', but unlike some other hurricanes/tropical storms, this one is very, very large.
While it was moving out of Washington D.C. last night, we were starting to get rain from the storm. There's 550 miles between D.C. and us. The rain started about 1 am Saturday night, and now on Sunday morning at 10 am, it's still raining with ripples of wind. It's supposed to rain steadily and heavily from now until 5:00 a.m. on Monday. The crap shoot is the wind. How strong? How long? We decided to prepare for power outage because of the abundant trees right up next to power lines, and using the advice of a friend who went through the edge of Katrina, we duct taped the bathtub drain and filled the tub with water. That way we can actually wash and flush if we lose power.
We finally found New England Cable News on the cable - which is actual coverage including RADAR of the New England area. ( I tell you, though, FLEXSEAL is advertising fast and furious - that's the one where the guy rows a boat with a screen door as the bottom of the boat that's been coated with FLEXSEAL which is apparently spray on rubber in a can. I feel like yelling at the TV: "Too little, too late, Buddy! Where were you yesterday!") I've also been vastly entertained all morning by the New York City coverage. It's pretty thrilling to see someone standing right where we did just a couple of months ago. The most vivid was the weather woman standing up to her knees in water right on the walkway where we lined up to get on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. That walkway is right next to the river. I realize that we don't exactly have a big audience up here in New England's equivalent to Hicksville, so it's understandable that CNN and WeatherChannel are fixated on New York. However, since the storm hasn't reached us yet, we needed a little more focused coverage on our specific area, and voila, NECN to the rescue.
I can already see that something I didn't count on was my hazy grasp of New England geography. I have learned how the states are stacked, and I know that the Connecticut River runs the length of the Vermont/New Hampshire border, but I really don't know the towns and roads like I would in Texas. As I'm listening to coverage, town names and road numbers, creek and river names are being dropped like grains of rice at a wedding. I'm glad we drove up the western side of Connecticut and Massachusetts to get here. That gives me some very rudimentary knowledge. Another funny thing, the state maps are the same size as the Texas map, but one inch equals 10 miles on these maps. It's hard to grasp how small this region really is. Oh, oh, I just heard the Pemigawasset River is going to flood. I know that name! It's right down the road a few miles.
Well, here's the irony: We've had virtually no wind, but lots of soft, constant rain with intermittent periods of moderately heavy rainfall. Now, at 7pm there's really not much rain, but stronger winds than we've seen in the past 24 hours. Using my Texas eye, I'd say maybe 35 or 40 mph. If it doesn't get any worse than this, I can go unstick the bathtub drain. I think the flooding of the rivers is the last hurdle we have to get over. As we live on a hill, all we have to do is stay home. Gosh, I can't believe how many goofballs were out when they were being told over and over and over again: STAY HOME. It's hard to feel sorry for someone who gets killed when a tree falls on their car while they are out rubbernecking.
Actually, it's obvious from the birds eye view up here that the NY infrastructure is going to take some time to get back to service. Subway stations that we used are underwater. Some of the north/south interstate highways have sections of high water running over the road, and I expect this will get worse in the next 24 hours as dozens of rivers crest. There are trees and power poles laying over rail tracks. It's hard to relate to this, but public transit moves so many people up here to their every day tasks - like going to work, going to school, even shopping for groceries, that disruption of the service ripples out throughout the communities.
I am so glad that this hurricane has been so much less severe than expected. I just hope that the people in the path don't think they were misled by the meteorologists. They really weren't. Weather prediction is still an inexact science even in this age of satellites and computers. Weather gurus can predict the path pretty accurately, but not the exact strength. Thus, the mantra about this storm by FEMA as well as the state authorities over a dozen states has been: It's better to be safe than sorry.
If Katrina taught us anything, it's that. You can always drive back home after the damage is not as bad as the forecast predicted. The inconvenience of spending a couple of days out of your house sure beats the heck out of drowning in your attic or sitting on your roof for days. I followed some of the twitter traffic up here today, and there was a lot of bitching about 'hype' and 'overkill' and 'scare tactics'. I think that when a hurricane like this comes up, CNN and the WeatherChannel should just air an hour of the news footage of people pleading for rescue and water from the tops of New Orleans roofs. I was happy to buy a couple of extra gallons of drinking water, fill some additional jugs, duct tape our bathtub drain and buy some batteries for our flashlights. This was a real victory for the new emergency system that has come gradually into being since Katrina. One million people were moved away from the New Jersey shore area without panic or even bad traffic jams.
It's been another travel 'experience' - a New England hurricane. It was interesting to follow the local coverage and watch the various state authorities. And the really good news: The leaves are still on the trees. It's going to be a great color show in New England this fall.
The reason I bring up New Orleans is that one of the things I took away from that city was a healthy respect for hurricanes. I saw many 'little ones' up very close and personal. When you look out the window and the rain in blowing directly into the pane and the trees 10 feet away are bent literally double, it's a spooky, scary sensation, AND that was a Cat One Hurricane. What I didn't expect was to have to draw on my NOLA storm knowledge in New Hampshire.
While Texas has sweltered and baked this summer, up here we have had, especially in August, almost daily rain. It's been really lovely, but the ground is saturated and spongy. The trees have sucked it up and put out a leaf canopy that fills the mountain sides. We have been expecting it to be an outstanding autumn. All well and good until along came Irene.
I like to think of it as "Hurricane New Hampshire". First, people here talk about four hurricanes: The New England Hurricane of 1938 - yes, that was it's 'name'; The Great Atlantic Hurricane of 1944, Gloria in 1985, and Bob in 1991. They generally have in common a large number of people hurt or killed or the hurricane was a Cat 2 or 3. I checked and surprisingly, there have been many, many more hurricanes in New England over the centuries most of which were not really memorable in that they didn't kill a lot of people and mostly were limited to weak Category 1 storms that passed through the region pretty quickly. Irene looks to be a different kettle of fish in that it follows the New England pattern of being 'weak', but unlike some other hurricanes/tropical storms, this one is very, very large.
While it was moving out of Washington D.C. last night, we were starting to get rain from the storm. There's 550 miles between D.C. and us. The rain started about 1 am Saturday night, and now on Sunday morning at 10 am, it's still raining with ripples of wind. It's supposed to rain steadily and heavily from now until 5:00 a.m. on Monday. The crap shoot is the wind. How strong? How long? We decided to prepare for power outage because of the abundant trees right up next to power lines, and using the advice of a friend who went through the edge of Katrina, we duct taped the bathtub drain and filled the tub with water. That way we can actually wash and flush if we lose power.
We finally found New England Cable News on the cable - which is actual coverage including RADAR of the New England area. ( I tell you, though, FLEXSEAL is advertising fast and furious - that's the one where the guy rows a boat with a screen door as the bottom of the boat that's been coated with FLEXSEAL which is apparently spray on rubber in a can. I feel like yelling at the TV: "Too little, too late, Buddy! Where were you yesterday!") I've also been vastly entertained all morning by the New York City coverage. It's pretty thrilling to see someone standing right where we did just a couple of months ago. The most vivid was the weather woman standing up to her knees in water right on the walkway where we lined up to get on the ferry to the Statue of Liberty. That walkway is right next to the river. I realize that we don't exactly have a big audience up here in New England's equivalent to Hicksville, so it's understandable that CNN and WeatherChannel are fixated on New York. However, since the storm hasn't reached us yet, we needed a little more focused coverage on our specific area, and voila, NECN to the rescue.
I can already see that something I didn't count on was my hazy grasp of New England geography. I have learned how the states are stacked, and I know that the Connecticut River runs the length of the Vermont/New Hampshire border, but I really don't know the towns and roads like I would in Texas. As I'm listening to coverage, town names and road numbers, creek and river names are being dropped like grains of rice at a wedding. I'm glad we drove up the western side of Connecticut and Massachusetts to get here. That gives me some very rudimentary knowledge. Another funny thing, the state maps are the same size as the Texas map, but one inch equals 10 miles on these maps. It's hard to grasp how small this region really is. Oh, oh, I just heard the Pemigawasset River is going to flood. I know that name! It's right down the road a few miles.
Well, here's the irony: We've had virtually no wind, but lots of soft, constant rain with intermittent periods of moderately heavy rainfall. Now, at 7pm there's really not much rain, but stronger winds than we've seen in the past 24 hours. Using my Texas eye, I'd say maybe 35 or 40 mph. If it doesn't get any worse than this, I can go unstick the bathtub drain. I think the flooding of the rivers is the last hurdle we have to get over. As we live on a hill, all we have to do is stay home. Gosh, I can't believe how many goofballs were out when they were being told over and over and over again: STAY HOME. It's hard to feel sorry for someone who gets killed when a tree falls on their car while they are out rubbernecking.
Actually, it's obvious from the birds eye view up here that the NY infrastructure is going to take some time to get back to service. Subway stations that we used are underwater. Some of the north/south interstate highways have sections of high water running over the road, and I expect this will get worse in the next 24 hours as dozens of rivers crest. There are trees and power poles laying over rail tracks. It's hard to relate to this, but public transit moves so many people up here to their every day tasks - like going to work, going to school, even shopping for groceries, that disruption of the service ripples out throughout the communities.
I am so glad that this hurricane has been so much less severe than expected. I just hope that the people in the path don't think they were misled by the meteorologists. They really weren't. Weather prediction is still an inexact science even in this age of satellites and computers. Weather gurus can predict the path pretty accurately, but not the exact strength. Thus, the mantra about this storm by FEMA as well as the state authorities over a dozen states has been: It's better to be safe than sorry.
If Katrina taught us anything, it's that. You can always drive back home after the damage is not as bad as the forecast predicted. The inconvenience of spending a couple of days out of your house sure beats the heck out of drowning in your attic or sitting on your roof for days. I followed some of the twitter traffic up here today, and there was a lot of bitching about 'hype' and 'overkill' and 'scare tactics'. I think that when a hurricane like this comes up, CNN and the WeatherChannel should just air an hour of the news footage of people pleading for rescue and water from the tops of New Orleans roofs. I was happy to buy a couple of extra gallons of drinking water, fill some additional jugs, duct tape our bathtub drain and buy some batteries for our flashlights. This was a real victory for the new emergency system that has come gradually into being since Katrina. One million people were moved away from the New Jersey shore area without panic or even bad traffic jams.
It's been another travel 'experience' - a New England hurricane. It was interesting to follow the local coverage and watch the various state authorities. And the really good news: The leaves are still on the trees. It's going to be a great color show in New England this fall.
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