Floyd update in Virginia, still 8 hours before he arrives

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It is now 7:20am Thursday here in eastern Virginia, about 100 miles north of VA Beach. I just came in from milking, and in a five gal. bucket was full up to 3 inches from the top, and it was empty at dusk last night. The wind has not really gotten very strong, maybe 25 mph, but rain, yes, my guess being we have had about 12" since yesterday morning. Elect. and phone is still on. I have not driven down to the Rappahannock River yet to see how high the tide is.

-- chicken farmer (chicken-farmer@ y2k.farm), September 16, 1999

Answers

They closed the schools here on the Jersey Shore today. My kids think this is great. We've already seen some pretty high gusts come through, and it's rained enough to give us little riverlets on each side of the street. I am still debating at this moment whether or not to go to work. (But I definately have to get to the Wawa..we need soda and donuts..the children have spoken)

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), September 16, 1999.

Kritter, please kep us informed. Mrs. Driver is in Secaucus/Teaneck for "training" and so she has NO access to e-mail. She just called, on her way in to this AM's class.

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), September 16, 1999.


It's getting right nasty here in Southwest New Jersey at the moment. Came into the office this A.M. to find the windows leaking like a sieve and the floor soaked. Landlord's doing the plastic sheeting thing right now in a driving rain. ;-)

The wind hasn't been too bad yet (maybe 40mph gusts at times), but it's raining buckets. Wife called a little while ago and said emergency management folks were going house to house near the Delaware River telling people they may need to get out later today as high tide approaches. My daughter was not amused (even though she was initially happy that school was closed today).

I'm concerned about my neighbor who has an above ground swimming pool, but didn't bother to drain it down a bit yesterday. Besides the river problems, my own personal "storm surge" could be a pool that collapses because it was too full of water or the ground was too soggy to support the walls. ;-) Any pool people out there? Is this a possibility?

(got sump pumps?)

-- Rick Cowles (rick@csamerica.com), September 16, 1999.


Rick,

If the pool was assembled correctly, you should have no problem, but this is assuming a LOT.

I have seen them over filled to overflowing and that is just INTERESTING for a while. Haven't seen any die form overflowing, but ours were installed RIGHT.

chuck, who in a previouys life installed a few in Va Bch Va.

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), September 16, 1999.


Rick, kritter and chicken farmer,

Keep the computers and yourselves dry. Good luck!

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 16, 1999.



Well, the office building landlord is now running the wetvac throught he office. Plastic sheeting seems to have stopped the indoor waterfall. The computers are staying dry, Diane (I covered everything with garbage bags before I left last night, just in case - always thinking ahead...). The network is backed up, and I'll be leaving the office shortly.

Thanks on the pool info, Chuck. I pulled my ingrounder down to the bottom of the skimmer last night, and I'm sure I'll be draining more this afternoon. If there's anything else significant to report later, I'll post under this thread.

Back to work...

-- Rick Cowles (rick@csamerica.com), September 16, 1999.


Rick - more telling as a forecast of y2k hysteria in the final 3-4 days of Dec - what is the attitude of the people shopping?

Anger, fear, worry, and selfishness, or more towards resignation and "we'll get by somehow"; or cooperation and "action"....your landlord seems in the "pro-action" group.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 16, 1999.


Robert: I posted the following in the euy2k forum yesterday:

Let me add my $.02 to this (somewhat) OT thread...

I'm watching this whole hurricane thing play out with an enhanced interest, as the storm seems to be heading my way shortly after landfall. The local TV weather track has the storm going right over my house. ;-)

So, here's a bit of perspective on this thing.

My daughter came and visited me in my office after school today. She was estatic when she walked in the door. "Guess what, Dad? No school tomorrow!"

Hmmm. Interesting. "Well," says I, "There goes one of your snow days for the year already, and we're not even out of September yet." Ah, kids. The end of this school year is so far in the future, thinking about extra days of school on the back end is not even on the radar screen.

I had a short list of things to pick up at the store on my way home (storm or not), and my daughter and I got to talking about what we might need if the storm got bad here.

"Well, if the lights go out, we'll need candles," she says.

"No we won't," I responded. "Remember the oil lamps?"

"How about some bags of ice to place in the freezer so the ice cream doesn't melt?" Trust a 12 year old to think about the ice cream.

I pointed out to her that we had other ways to get power to the house. "Oh, yeah, I fogot about the generator," she said. "And we've got all that water stored...enough food...what about food for Chelsea? (Our dog)?"

"That's on my list, dear."

Now, I got to thinking about it, and mentally ticked off the items on my preparedness list. Heck, we were already ready for just about anything mother nature could deal at us (short of huffing, puffing, and blowing the house down). So, a bit later, we left the office for the food store to pick up the few non-essentials on the list. Now, my spouse had been to the store earlier in the day, and detected no "unusually large crowd of people".

But when I went to the supermarket about 4:30, it was bedlam city. No kidding. Now, I'm used to last minute panic buying before a forecasted snowstorm, but this was beyond anything I'd seen for snow. It was surreal. Bread was basically gone. Bottled water was picked over. Every line in the grocery store was operating, and every one of them was 6 people deep in line.

Now, as I was standing in the speed line to buy the bag of dog food, it occured to me: the initiating event for the "run" was most probably the closing of school for tomorrow! All of a sudden, the potential seriousness of the situation hit people smack upside the head, and they rushed to the store.

On the way home, daughter asked: "Do you think a lot of people in town have generator, Dad?"

"Probably not," I replied. "But let's hope that no one needs one anyway."

We've got a little family gesture that means, essentially, from your lips to God's ears. My kid made the gesture, and opined, "Well, I'm glad we've got one."

From the mouths of babes...

-- Rick Cowles (rick@csamerica.com), September 15, 1999.




-- Rick Cowles (rick@csamerica.com), September 16, 1999.

Well up here in Central Vermont- it is raining. which is unusual since it hasn't done that much this summer. No winds yet-

unfortunately I have a Farmers Market this p.m.- not much fun in the rain........

-- farmer (hillsidefarm@drbs.net), September 16, 1999.


Thanks Rick.

Y2K lessons... lessons... everywhere.

(Even in one's face... if people pay attention).

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 16, 1999.



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