OK, I thought I was reading “President of the United States SEALs”........
As for those trying to downgrade Irene because of sustained wind or wind gust speed, that is not the problem.
The problem is this past month we (Mid-Altantic region)already have unusually high amount of rainfall in several severe storms, flashfloods/flooding and flooding-caused down trees (therefore down powerlines) had already occurred.
We have completely saturated soil around all this area, all the creeks and rivers are at or near flood stage. Where are the rain (projected to be 5 to 10 inches) going to go? When the ground is this wet, you really don’t need hurricane wind to topple even a hundred-year-old tree.