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

Below is Five Guys Burgers that is all boarded up

Below is Taco Bell

Burger King is below

Slowest and emptiest 7/11 you will ever see

This is Veronica's store. Really nice board job wouldn't you agree?

Various houses along the ocean front road and various other locations

Even the Colington Fire Department got boarded up

Not sure how well this mobile home on stilts will fare during this hurricane.

Below is the Kill Devil Hills Post Office

Major Update To Hurricane Irene

The latest out of the weather channel is good news.
Before the hurricane was supposed to hit tomorrow afternoon and evening and Hurricane Irene was supposed to come in as a category 2 storm.
The latest news is that Hurricane Irene will hit later on tonight and be around through tomorrow but it will arrive ashore as a Category 1 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 100mph. That is a huge difference from the 115mph winds that we were going to get. Those measly 15 mph makes a big difference in the amount of damage that could have occurred.
We were planning on sleeping in our own bed tonight but with this latest breaking news, we might have to sleep "Command Central" tonight....1st floor interior bathroom which has a floor space of no more that maybe 3' wide by 6' long. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get some video taken of the winds from the safety of our garage.
More updates to follow.

Hurricane Irene Update

All of our preparations are finished so now it is time to play the waiting game. Hurricane Irene is currently South of us and will most likely make landfall just South of us also. As it stand right now, it appears that Hurricane Irene will come in as a category 2 storm. The pressure at the center of the storm is 946mb which is a very low barometric pressure and those low numbers are usually seen in Category 3 or stronger hurricanes.
Some of the most Northern rain bands of Irene are just about to hit Hatteras.
This is a huge storm that is moving rather slowly, so it will linger for quite some time after it arrives here.
It is currently 85 degrees and somewhat sunny outside as the sun peaks through the clouds. There isn't much of a breeze here yet but that will all change as we get closer to the arrival of Hurricane Irene.