Galaxy Gun

Gotta be better large

I was just about to blip a shot of Irenes clouds yesterday when our cable went, the text I had written is below. The cable has just come back on (Midday Monday). Since I wrote the text below we had a lot of wind and a few more power outs but by sundown Irene was just leaving bands across the sky. The air after a storm is always so fresh and clear. So later that night I went out side and did some more long exposures of the sky. Here is one from Sunday night. Once this is up I will also blip a great star trails composite I did later. The sky was so clear, although bands of clouds did come hurtling through as you will see in Mondays blip.

Anyways, this backblip is called Galaxy Gun because from behind my house the milky was rises from over the house and for periods of time it looks like the the trail of a projectile fired from our chimney!


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Well Irene has been to visit... She's just leaving now but she's taking her time about it.

We have made it through a lot better than we hoped. We had the kids sleep in our room last night as their rooms were more likely to have trees fall on them thatn ours.

Last night and this morning we had a lot of rain and wind. Now we really just have the wind. Irene passed by to the east of us meaning we were to the west of the storm. I wont give you a lecture on the dynamics of hurricanes but basically and over simplified, theres more rain on the west side of the storm and more wind on the east side. Now the storm has passed us we are on the south side of the storm so we are now getting a lot less rain but also a lot more wind.

A local sites list a lot of our local roads are closed, most of our ways to get anywhere actually, due to fallen trees and/or flooding. We could hear them falling in the forest last night, not the most comforting of sounds.

Power wise... we keeping having the power go off for a second and then come back. The longest its been out for is 10 mins. Hopefully we wont get any longer outages as the basement will flood even more.

The basement has flooding at one end, its coming up through the floor. I have barricaded that end in with toghtly wedges cardboard boxes and they seem to be holding the water back. Its about an inch deep in parts behind the wall.

In another corner we had little jets of water coming through the concrete... I actually managed to block those jets by filling them in with some epoxy resin gel stuff I have. I felt a bit stupid trying it, kneading in the epoxy on top of little jets of water but eventually they stuck and the water stopped.

The pump has been doing a great job. It got overwhelmed at the height of the rain and for a while after the drain it is in looked like overflowing, the water was an inch from the rim of the drain cover, but eventually it pulled it back and started emptying the drain out. It is now not on flat out any more it keeps going on and off as the drain starts refilling. I did find out that even now we will still flood completely if we lose power for too long because when the power went off for 10 mins I stood in the basement shining a torch into the drain and watched the level come back up 3/4 of the way to the top before the power kicked back in and the pump started lowering it again.

I guess once this over I'll have a load of boxes, some with stuff in some without, that will need chucking out. I think I will also need to research how to properly seal the concrete floor and walls. I will also need to invest in a lot of heavy duty shelving units so no stuff needs to be on the floor. Obviously I'll need to make sure nothing goes on the lower few shelves! Also I think getting rid of a load of our crap would also be helpful. That way at least the things that need saving will be easier to find when things like this happen. All the bookcases in the basement will have to come out.

We have gotten off lightly compared to initial expectations. Flooding through NJ is still going to be a big problem. We already had record rainfall for August before the storm came along. There is nowhere for the water to go.

I can see from the little icon that Ive lost internet access so I wont be posting this after Ive written it... just checked, the cable tv has gone too.. oh well...

I hope all the other North East blippers are doing well...