Weather Worries
I have been thinking about some lines from T. S. Eliot’s “The Dry Salvages,” the third of his Four Quartets, lately:
I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a strong brown god – sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyer of commerce;
Then only a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities – ever, however, implacable,
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. . . .The river is within us, the sea is all about us; . . .
And how. We live about 150 feet from Long Island Sound. My worry is that, over the next couple of days, that distance is going to shrink to zero as Hurricane Sandy delivers great quantities of the Sound over the paltry sea wall that separates the dwellings of our neighborhood from the “untamed and intractable” currents that surround us.
We’ve lived here for about 15 years and have had several bad floods. A few times our basement filled up to the brim with water. But I have never seen anything like the warnings that are preceding the arrival of Hurricane Sandy. The storm is still a day or more away from us but already extra water is piling up in the Sound. The wind has ticked up to about 8 knots (oops, it’s now up to 11 knots), blowing east-northeast, which means that it is pushing even more water our way. As I write there are about 2 feet more water in the Sound than predicted, and we are at a point in the tide cycle where high tides are especially high. And take a look at the air pressure:
Yikes. The meteorological news, as per usual, been a near hysterical rant, but this time the hysteria seems justified. We’ve had at least three automated calls from town officials warning us about the storm. The last was from the fire chief, who said that we could expect increasingly bad storm surges for 4 tide cycles, beginning with tonight’s high tide around midnight.
All around us, people are boarding up water-facing windows and moving their belongings around. In the end, alas, there is not all that much you can do. The best advice is probably that offered by my PJM colleague Brendan Loy: “Get the Hell Out.” Our whole neighborhood will likely be evacuated by early tomorrow. The children think it is exciting, which I suppose it is, but I confess this is a species of excitement I could do without.
Distance from the water is only one part of the equation. You also have to factor the height above mean. And the lay of the land both above the waterline and below.
As someone that has gone through many hurricanes, the lessons are build high and be careful at the head of a bay.
What are you waiting for, go now.
Don’t wait,
For every hour you have to spend on the road today, that could be four or more once the evacuation gets going.
If nothing bad happens, you can call it a long weekend.
If things go pear shaped at home, you are not there.
Get the family photos, legal documents (send copies to yourself or a cloud), the computer(s), the pets, and any antiques from Grandma you can load up and get out.
(Don’t forget a copy of your insurance policy.)
Our thoughts and prayers with the PJ Media and friends in the path of the monster.
(From a S Shore native):
Just hope T S wasn’t being prophetic:
But resign this land at the end, resign it
To its true owner, the tough one, the sea gull.
The palaver is finished.
Good Luck
We live 100 feet from the Chesapeake Bay, and we don’t stay during storms like this. There is nothing you can do to protect your property from surge if you stay, and by the time it gets bad enough that you realize you shouldn’t have stayed, you can’t get out. So why take the chance.
I also can’t emphasize enough what you have heard before about being able to get by for 4 or 5 days without stores and gas stations. When main trunk lines and transformers get knocked out it takes longer than you would expect for things to start working again. Three days after Isabel main commercial arteries were still without power. This meant that it was difficult to find gas or groceries.
Good luck, stay safe, and I have to say I am glad this one is going north of us not into us.
My optimistic intellect usually manages to bridle my pessimistic temperament, but on occasions like this my man Fred has the right idea:
Once upon a time, a major hurricane was forecast to come ashore near a couple’s seaside house. They declined an invitation to spend the night with inland friends, but they changed their mind. When they returned home after the storm had passed, they found nothing but the front steps.
And take a look at the air pressure:
If it starts to go even lower than 1010 millibars, things will probably not end well…
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