Hurricane Irene spent the day moving lazily up North Carolina’s Outer Banks, rolling ashore this morning and exiting into Virginia this evening. By landfall the storm had weakened to Category 1 status: just barely a hurricane. Even so, the storm cut a wide swath across the state, though reports of damage (other than power outages) seemed few. Last I heard, four people had died from flooding accidents.
I watched the TV coverage of the storm all day and then wondered why I bothered. There were only so many things one can say about Irene and after the first hour I’d heard them all. I did enjoy watching the live video uplinks from the beaches all up and down the East Coast, courtesy of my Free to Air (FTA) satellite dish. As soon as the studio would cut away from the soggy reporters getting blown around on the beach, those reporters would whip out their Blackberries.
Speaking of whipping things out, a humorous story today was the streakers who ran behind the Weather Channel’s Eric Fisher during his live broadcasts from Virginia Beach, VA. That this was the highlight of the day says something about the mundane coverage.
As for the neighborhood, most people had very little if any damage. There were reports of power outages farther east of us but our power only flickered once. Our neighbors’ pine tree broke off about 25 feet from the top and landed harmlessly in their neighbors’ yard. The tree had been banging against nearby trees and it eventually took its toll.
So North Carolina is done with Irene. We’ll send the storm northward with a tub or two of barbecue and hush puppies. Maybe some sweet tea, too. And we’ll invite all visitors who aren’t tropical storms back to our beaches for Labor Day weekend.