Life Through My Eyes: 08/01/2011

Still Awaiting The Return of Services

Our internet, phone and cable services are still down. Unfortunately we are dealing with Charter Communications to remedy the problem. Based on our previous dealings with them, it could be many moons until our service is restored. In the meantime Veronica and I decided to piggyback onto our local Staples internet hotspot.

So here I sit in our vehicle, with laptop on my lap...thus the name laptop and I will be trying to get this blog entry completed with the least amount of problems. Hopefully all will go well.
Below are some photos of what Veronica and I witnessed both during and after Hurricane Irene visited us.
The videos, which are really cool, will have to wait until our internet is back up and running at home.

I apologize for these photos not being in order. This is all I can get up tonight. I have more photos and videos that I will be posting, hopefully in the near future.

You can click on each image to get the larger version to show up.

All of these photos were taken from either our driveway, the front of our home or from our back deck.

Still Without Services

I figured that I would pop on here real quick using Veronica's IPad.
We are still without telephone, cable and Internet service. Charter personnel told Veronica that everyone should have all of their services back within 3 days and that was as of yesterday.
I have all Hurricane Irene photos and videos ready to be uploaded onto this blog as soon as we get Internet services restored.
I had to make a run to the Post Office today.
It was real sad driving up the road and seeing these huge piles of people's belongs, furniture, rugs, mattresses and any other household item that you could imagine, along the side of the road. There were lots of huge piles near the trailer park.
I saw lots of people just dragging things from their homes and throwing them on their pile.
As you will see once I am able to upload all of the photos and videos, that Veronica and I were very lucky that we did not get flooded out.
I will be back on this blog as soon as Charter Communications gets us up and running again.
Veronica finally got electricty back in her store so they are back open for business. her TJ Maxx store suffered minimal damage and that was to an awning that is in the back side of her store.

Hurricane Irene Kicked Our Butts

The last 48 hours has been interesting to say the least. The first half of the hurricane was uneventful and I figured that it was going to be a piece of cake. Just a little rain and wind. Then the eye of the hurricane passed by us and the wind changed direction. The next thing we new was that all of the water that had been sucked out of the bay and Into the sound came rushing back into the bay. It came into the bay like a raging and rushing river. Next thing we knew, it looked like our place was going to be flooded. We had rush around and grab whatever we could to get it up to the second floor.
The water rose and stopped just 2 feet shy of the back wall of our computer/storage room that is on the ground floor.
We watched this whole thing from start to finish. I was able to get some great video and photos of this whole event along with photos of some damaged houses in the area. We lost electricity until just tonight. It was a hot and miserable 30 or so hours without a/c, especially with all of the water and moisture around. No warm water for showers plus we were worried about losing all of our refrigerated food items. We still have no Internet, cable or telephone service.
I am doing this blog entry from the IPad that I got Veronica recently.
Without phone service, Internet, electricity, cable or any other services to the outside world, this device came in quite handy.
As soon as we get Internet service back, I will be uploading lots of videos and photos of our experiences with Hurricane Irene.
Veronica and I are safe and sound and because we did not have any other distractions to keep us occupied...except for the hurricane of course, we were able to spend some quality time during this weather event.
I even allowed myself to get talked into helping clean up her craft room, which is no small chore let me tell you. We also spent the day getting our home back into the condition it was in prior to the hurricane arriving...this too was no small chore because I had dragged several wardrobe boxes and various cameras and electronics up to the second floor and out of our ground level computer/storage room.
One thing that I forgot to mention was That as fast the water rose, when I woke up this morning, 80 percent of the water had receded and there were cars on the road.
Stay tuned for the videos and photographs taken during this hurricane.
I will post them as soon as I have Internet service.

Additional Hurricane Irene Videos

Here are a bunch of additional Hurricane Irene videos that were taken this morning.

Veronica and I decided to take a brief drive to see what Hurricane Irene has left behind

Colington Fire Department personal driving around to make sure everyone was safe and sound and to observe the any damage from Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene Update...Yes Again!!!

I am in the process of putting together quite a number of Hurricane Irene videos. I got a lot. It will take me a bit to get them uploaded and hopefully the electricity will stay on until I am finished.

I will get them uploaded as soon as possible.

Videos Of Hurricane Irene

Here are a few videos taken from the safety of my garage. The winds are supposed to pick up quite a bit as the day goes by. I will be uploading more in a bit depending on whether the electricity stays on.

Morning Hurricane Irene Update

Last night Veronica and I started to sleep downstairs in "Command Central" but due to how small the 1st floor interior bathroom is, we ended up moving ourselves just outside of the bathroom door. This area is a small hallway that leads to our computer room. We had put all kinds of comforters and blankets on top of the carpet in order to have some type of cushioning to make it more comfortable.

After sleeping there for a brief period of time, we woke up sore and stiff and moved up to our bedroom, which is on the 2nd floor.

We slept until about 7 this morning. The wind had picked up some and the rain was coming down pretty hard.

We emptied the tub, which we had filled with water. Took a quick shower and filled the tub back up.

Then it was coffee time.

The wind has really picked up.

Our electricity might go down. the lights have flickered off and on a couple of times and the electricity is out in other areas around us.

I will be trying to get some videos and photos this morning.

I wanted to get a quick blog entry before the electricity went out.

Landfall for Hurricane Irene was at 7:38AM at Cape lookout, NC.

Will be back in a while unless we lose our power.

More updates to follow.

Out And About Photos Before Hurricane Irene Arrives

Veronica and I decided to take a ride to see what businesses had been boarded up to protect them from Hurricane Irene.
I apologize up front for the quality of some of the photos. They were taken through rainy windows, between the movements of the wiper blades or out of the side windows.
Our area was pretty desolate with few cars on the road and only one convenience/gas station that just reopened as we were taking a photo of their boarded up business.
Here are some of the sights that we saw while driving around before Hurricane Irene arrived here:

First stop was at the Ramada Inn. This is where we were thinking about riding this hurricane out. This is also where the Weather Channel personnel have set up shop along with numerous other news trucks from around the country. There were quite a number of satellite dishes on these various trucks. The vehicles below are carrying fuel on top of their vehicles. The fuel is for the generators used on the satellite news trucks