So happy for you Rita, I have had my fingers crossed for folks in the path of that vicious storm. Hurricanes have never been a thing we've had to deal with here. My heart goes out to those that do.

Annette

Glad all was ok. Of course that is not the case everywhere and this was a Cat 1 storm. Note to all: Please do not become complacent with future storms. Many of them will be less fierce than predicted, but some will be more fierce. Heed the warnings and do the preparedness things, even though it is aggravating and tiresome to take all our outdoor stuff in and put it right back out. I'm sure we will hear from others who right now have power out, and some of that flooding is just awful.
Laurie

Annette, thanks. NYC is not used to storms coming as close as this one did and I think the officials did a great job making sure everyone stayed as safe as possible.

Laurie- I don't think it was agrivating as I wanted to be safe. Better to be prepared and not need it than the other way around. The winds could have stayed much higher when they reached us, I am glad they went down some.

I watch the news from the Carolinas and they got it so much worse than we did. I feel for all those people having to cope with the aftereffects and devisation. I am blessed that nothing bad happened here in my little area.

I cut up the sunflower plant and hauled it away. Saved the seedheads that were ripe and threw them into the shrub border here for the squirrels and birds to eat.

I decided to take a drive around town this afternoon to see what I could see. The power is on here in our section of town known as "The Landing" after the name of the main road down here. But as soon as you make a turn to the section of town with the two supermarkets all the power is off. Really bad news for the supermarkets as that means all the meats and frozen foods have to be tossed. Bad news for all the residents of town too as that means the supermarkets are not open and no one can go buy food. Lots of resturants in that part of town too but all closed.

Hi Rita, glad to hear you fared well. We have family in both Nassau and Suffolk counties and so many are without power. I'm so glad there was as much evacuation and preparedness in NYC and surrounding areas. The weather is so unpredictable and even a Cat 1 can cause such damage. We were quite relieved when it was downgraded just before hitting NYC.

My folks live in coastal NC (not on the cape) and lived through Isabel which was a Cat 1 when it got to them. Sometimes folks scoff at "just a Cat 1", but they lost over 80 trees that day and there were imbedded tornadoes in the hurricane. They were in the northeast eye-wall of Isabel for hours. It was devestating and scary. It really depends on where exactly the storm hits as to who will get the most damage. For Irene, it was a bit windy but they didn't have nearly the flood of the last hurricane and only lost a few trees. The folks further inland in NC got hammered.

It seems like anyone further west of the eye got swamped with water and hit with some pretty bad winds. I couldn't believe the images of a beautiful covered bridge in VT that got swept away. I think VT lost 6 covered bridges yesterday from the storm.

We only had a slight amount of wind and rain here. We are fortunate that we didn't lose power and had no flooding. There are sooo many folks who will be w/o power for days all up and down the east coast from NC to ME.

I walked around the garden a bit today and things looks a bit bedraggled here and there but it will all perk up with the gorgeous weather expected this week.

Hi Rita, i was thinking about you during the storm and praying for all of you that it was gonna hit,that you'd all be spared any disasters.

Talked to my sister in washingtonville,she was safe and just had some water in her basement,but not a lot since she lives on a hill.But their downtown is under water.

My other sister in Goshen escaped as well,but her neighbors across the street not only have their back and front yards filled with water,but raw sewage as well.

The other sister in Hillburn also did well,although she can't get into Suffern to shop as it was floodedas well.I remember that one part of hillburn where it meets suffern always flooding when i was a kid,guess they never fixed it over all these years,as i've not been a kid in a whole lotta years.
Kathi

I can't tell everyone enough how lucky I am. I found out thru the mayors telephone updates just now that out of the 11,000 people in our town area about 9,000 had lost power. I couldn't write down the numbers fast enough to remember them but the still without power number is very high. We have a large very great Hospital in our town which was in the part of town without power. They only got power back to the hospital and surrounding areas this morning. That length of time for the hospital to not have power restored is unheard of here. Of course it has emergeny generators so patients are never in danger.

Since I am one of the lucky ones, I watch the news and see what is going on in the area. It is unbelievable in NJ. The flooding from the storms most of the rivers have not yet even reached the highest creasting. NJ already looks like a giant lake!

In our county the south shore has many low lying areas that totally flooded from the storm surge. Watching many homeowners that lost all there possessions inside the house like pictures and memories. Then there are the people that have trees down on top of the house. Really, really bad.

I feel blessed that the storm did minimal damage to my little green acre, it almost makes me afraid of what the next one might bring. Other than some small branches and leaves on the lawn, there's not much in the way of debris. Water did get in the cellar but so little a few paper towels would dry it up. I set my rain gauge in the lawn away from any tree canopy and it measured just 5" after the storm passed. That's a lot and would normally mean a flooded cellar but it's not as much as we've had with other storms that didn't have official names.

The power was out 48+ hours so everything in the 'fridge will need to be tossed out, but that's a very small pricetag compared to the cost of what could have happened. Lots of folks lost their end-of-season vegetable harvests, including tomatoes that were just beginning to ripen and I passed by cornfields where huge swaths of tall cornstalks were flattened.

Another blessing is having power restored when thousands are still in the dark, including my son and a dear friend who lives in the same town just a couple miles from me. There are houses with huge trees that fell on them whose occupants may wait weeks or longer for help, and at what cost? There is a street I pass on my way to work (and just about everywhere else) that is closed to traffic as they try to remove a tree that seems to have fallen across the road and landed on the power lines as well as other trees so it's dangerous to cut and even more dangerous to let it fall. How do you untangle a mess like that without someone getting hurt...or worse? Are those who take on this work getting paid enough to take such risks?

Then there's the uncertainty still about the extent of the damage in Vermont. So many small rivers are swollen and raging out of their banks and over 200 roads have been washed away, it will be months if not longer before the full extent of the devastation is known.

I wish all Vermont folks well...

My tall sunflowers were leaning a bit, so I just righted them and staked them. This is the first time I've grown them and was worried about losing them.

I have to go over to upstate NY today and am having trouble finding a way through VT. So many roads are closed, it's unbelievable.

Glad everyone came through okay!

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but there is yet another storm brewing in the Atlantic Ocean. Don't know just yet which way it will go, but please be watchful.

My daughter lives in N. Carolina and my younger son lives just north of Houston, TX., so I keep watch on all the Tropical storms, whichever way they go. :(
Mother hen - Annie

Annie, News in NY has already been following Hurricaine KATYA from since it because a Tropical Depression. No forcast for were it will go yet.

Rita, I have been thinking about you! I'm so glad that you and your garden are just fine! A friend in Conneticut has a tree down, one in half, a crushed up garden and leaves everywhere, power off until today...but no flooding inside, thankfully. A girlfriend in Brooklyn lost everything in her basement (but had photo memories of almost everything, it's amazing that she took photos of everything by co-incidence!). So many people are suffering major flooding. We're in line to possibly get it from either side in the next week or so, but at this time, nothing intense. I'll be very happy to share a good rain with those who need it, and spare those who surely don't!