Goodbye Irene

It was a storm we rarely get
And not a storm we will forget.
With gusting winds beyond belief
And bands of rain with no relief.

We weathered in and hunkered down
As nature flared her fury's gown.

Then came the calm or so it seemed
But light of day beset a scream.
The living force from some was gone
Their lives dispatched by Monday's dawn.

We weathered in and hunkered down
As nature flared her fury's gown.

With power gone and road ways too
Irene's Ill wind did bite and chew.
She took her time and swallowed whole
Both homes and towns; a wrenching toll.

We weathered in and hunkered down
As nature flared her fury's gown.

Resilience is the path for now
As many build again somehow.
There is one thing we must all do:
It's helping many start anew.

We weathered in and hunkered down
As nature flared her fury's gown.

Regional Devestation

Good Day All,

Still no power in my area. I am unable to post daily missives. The rumor is that it will be at least a week before 90% of the region is restored onto the power grid.

The hurricane was filled with sound and fury.  Nearby rivers and streams were eight to ten feet above flood stage. Roads have been washed out; hundreds of trees block roads and driveways and it will take months if not years to repair the major damage.

The pelting rainstorm arrived around eleven at night so there was no visual experience of its onset. There was however the sound. A strong sound that announced its presence with a howling wind and pelting rain against the windows and the house siding. You could not only hear it you could feel it.

Shortly thereafter I was lulled into a sleep that sustained until first light. By then the circulating wind and rains bands of hurricane Irene were in full force and seeing the storm for the first time gave it an added dimension.

Late in the afternoon the storm waned. Winds still gusted into the rocks and rills of Rifton where I live, but the rain had passed. Debris was everywhere; mostly dead twigs an branches that the winds prodded and pruned from the trees. Green leaves from the oaks and maples, festooned the roads, lawns and open meadows of my rural community. It was the confetti of an ill wind.

I went out to inspect. Many roads were blocked by fallen trees. I have video and pictures which I will post when I can.

My home and family are just inconvenienced, so many of my friends and neighbors have lost homes, cars and personal possessions. The storm surge here came after the storm had passed and the mountain streams funneled the rain runoff into small streams and tributaries. All of them became a torrent of destruction to the valley and hollows below.

I will post again when I can.

Post and Power

Hi Everyone,

I’m expecting a power outage because of Hurricane Irene so if you do not see a new post on this blog Monday morning it will be because the power is out.

I’ll get back to you as soon as I can with some photos and observations of storm.

Be well,

RGS

Anticipation

Anticipation is one of those emotions that excites, inhibits, invites, implores, expects and delights all of us from the time we are children to the time we finish what we came to this earth to do.

What has engendered anticipation in my mind is the approaching ill wind of hurricane Irene.

I am playing the role of observer. I’m observing what my neighbors are anticipating and preparing for as the hurricane approaches little used territory for the term of hurricane. I am observing what the New York local media is presenting to viewers and the level of anticipated danger.

In history there have been a few storms of power that have impacted the New York/New England terrain, but not the kind category five storm that the south and the gulf coast has experienced or are used too.

We are novices here in the northeast except for those souls who are both, old enough to remember the physical devastation of the hurricane in 1938 or who are students of history and have read the pathology of the not-named hurricane in 1938.

 (Please check the previous post for a brief synopsis of its history.)

Anticipation is a gripping vice that starts in your solar plexus and moves into your mind and engenders all sorts of potential possibilities.

Each of us reacts differently to perceived oncoming danger. Fear, excitement, and complacency are a few of the reactions. Fear is understood, so is excitement, but complacency has always been the fodder of tragedy and the lamentations of self-reprisal when destruction, death and despair are basking in the aftermath light of common sunshine.

To my friends on the east coast. Be prepared. Be smart. Be aware and be loved and loving for you are where you have chosen to be.

Hurricane Irene and 1938

Hurricane Irene is seemingly heading up the east coast and if it holds a specific path it could slam straight into Long Island, New York. It happened once before.

Whenever nature explodes in an aberrational fury, we quickly reestablish awe for her power and acknowledge respect for a force we cannot totally understand or appreciate. Today we have satellite technology that warns us of pending danger. Not so back in 1938.

On September 21st, that year forecasters knew there was a hurricane out there, but figured it would blow itself out.

        

The North Atlantic was under a high-pressure plateau and the then nameless hurricane was being squeezed toward the Northeast.

By two O'clock in the afternoon the Atlantic City Board walk was gone. Then a 40-foot wall of water, a tidal surge, hit Long Island's south shore with such impact it registered on a seismograph in Alaska.

Mansions disappeared. Towns collapsed. Boats splintered. It was the same throughout New England. All told, 63 thousand lost their homes. Nearly 18-hundred were injured. 700 died.

Communications were down. Newspapers did not learn of the destruction for days.

America had suffered a disaster greater than the Chicago Fire or the San Francisco earthquake, but what most people knew was that Hitler had seized Czechoslovakia that same day.

Eastern Earthquake

Most people think the big quakes happen out west, particularly in California, but history says different.

The biggest quake ever experienced in the continental United States happened during the winter months of 1811. A quake estimated at measuring 8.6 on the Richter scale rumbled through an area 150 miles long and 50 miles wide from New Madrid, Missouri.

The quake was so powerful the ground sank 12 feet in some areas and for a short time it reversed the flow of the Mississippi River.

The tectonic shock wave rumbled all the way to Washington D.C. where bells rang in church steeples from the ground shaking and clocks were supposedly stopped in New Orleans.

150 years ago the country was relatively unpopulated and there was little damage and few injuries. If a quake, that large, were to happen today the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it could cause 50-billion dollars in damage and probably kill thousands of people.

The earthquake in the east experienced yesterday was tiny compared to the big one of 1811, but we should not be complacent and think the east is invulnerable.

The underground geology in the east, with its tight formations, would shake more violently in a big quake than those that occur in the west. Let us hope not, but also let us be prepared.

Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial

The Reverend Martin Luther King’s memorial in Washington, D.C. is scheduled to open officially next weekend. Yesterday it opened to the public.

It is powerful in its image pulled from the marble block.

The King memorial is the only major structure on the national mall that does not honor a president.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

©1995, 2009 Rolland G. Smith

I had a dream the other night

And Martin Luther King was there.

He spoke in tones befit the wise

And asked me if I’d share,

The news of how his dream came out,

Since he had been away.

I told him times had changed somewhat

But the dream was still a dream

And somewhere in these many years

Was progress, or so it seemed.

Tell me, he said, what has happened,

Since he had been away.

We’ve legislated out the hate,

I said, but laws can’t touch the mind,

If bias reeks within the heart

There cannot be a human - kind.

It’s still not true, he said,

For he had been away.

And then he said, where he is now,

There is no ONE color bright,

Not black or white, yellow or brown.

There is only a loving light.

It’s the truth I lived, and live,

He said, as he went away.