Posted on 08/29/2011 6:14:04 PM PDT by Palter
Almost a dozen New England towns were rendered virtual islands Monday as floodwaters from the remnants of Hurricane Irene reshaped parts of Vermont and upstate New York, turning placid rivers into raging torrents and some streets into treacherous mud bogs.
Hundreds of roads remained closed, dozens of bridges were gone and entire towns were cut off from assistance in the worst flooding some areas have seen in a century.
A day earlier, Irene dumped up to 11 inches on parts of Vermont and more than 13 inches on some areas of New York — a deluge that quickly overwhelmed waterways, storm sewers and drainage systems. At one point, the floodwaters were rising so fast that Vermont officials feared they might have to take the extraordinary step of flooding the state capital of Montpelier to relieve pressure on a dam.
"We prepared for the worst and we got the worst in central and southern Vermont," Gov. Peter Shumlin said. "It's just devastating — whole communities under water. ... We're tough folks here in Vermont, but Irene really ... hit us hard."
The destruction was etched across the landscape: highways washed out by fast-moving water, bridges and homes crumpled into heaps of broken planks and streets filled with mud thick enough to stop heavy duty vehicles in their tracks.
The images were much the same in upstate New York, where buildings that had withstood a century of hard winters and spring floods were carried away. The floodwaters upended cars and trucks and sent trees tumbling down rivers like matchsticks.
"We were expecting heavy rains," said Bobbi-Jean Jeun of Clarksville, a rural hamlet near Albany. "We were expecting flooding. We weren't expecting devastation."
(Excerpt) Read more at google.com ...
You and napscoordinator are both coming across as smug jerks.
Rutland is in great shape because of the ice storm of December 2008. No trees lost, no power outage (for me). Part of the town did lose power but it was back as of yesterday morning. Anything weak or diseased was already gone. Much of the rest of the state was not so lucky. South shore and metrowest got it the worst.
Sorry, I’m in Rutland MA not VT!
Points well taken.
I think the media did everyone a disservice by hyping the “hurricane” (wind) aspect of this storm. After all, it makes for better video than an extended period of heavy rain. The slow, inexorable march of tons of water isn’t dramatic enough (maybe if they used jiggly handhelds or flash-cut every few seconds, it would satisfy their short-attention-span mania).
This storm is a wake-up call for millions who didn’t have the slightest idea of how to be self-reliant. I’d venture to say too many are “addicted” to electricity - they’re going through severe withdrawal. Of course, I don’t mean the life-and-death elements of it (food, cooking, health). But the lack of tv, facebook, texting, etc. has people on edge.
Schools are closed around here for the second day in a row. Trees down, sporadic power outages.
Prayers up for everyone’s safety.
> I’m just next door in central New Hampshire. You don’t have
> a well for water? A generator for the times when the snow
> shuts off power for long periods of time? You don’t stock
> up on food for those events?
We have *ALL* those things, but there are a LOT of people who do not. Would you have us just mock them and leave them to twist in the wind? Or would you like to at least offer prayers and concern? Some folks were much more adversely affected than you.
> You’re whining.
Reporting on how some people have been adversely affected is not whining.
Yeah, there weren’t as many affected as in some storms. Yeah, it wasn’t as bad as the plastic trauma jockey’s in the media said it would be. But there are a lot of people hurting today from NC to ME, with 38 dead and billions in damage.
Some of you have no compassion. I truly hope you never need it, but remember that you reap what you sow.
I’m from Virginia and frankly, I’m sick of hearing about Louisiana and Katrina too. I’ve been sick of hearing about it for years now. And I’ve had it with all the people on Freerepublic who dismissed Irene. The families with dead loved ones and the people who dealing with the floods aren’t soft or weak or they may or may not have voted for Obama. This whole forum has gotten really nasty lately.
Jerk I’ll cop to and especially with Northerners who think they are superior to us.
But smug...never.
He’s only able to use his cell phone because he still has cell phone towers in his vicinity.
Try doing that when they’re either all blown down or out of power because their generators ran down. Most places south of highway 98 in MS were w/o cell phone access for a MONTH or more. There WAS no way to reach my parents via phone, ANY kind of phone, during the aftermath of Katrina. For a MONTH. No land lines, no cell phones and no way to get there because gas was rationed for law enforcement and power companies.
You have no clue how interconnected all your modern conveniences are until you lose one, and then another, and then another. Good luck boiling water with no electricity. Oh, you had a gas stove? Hope that works when the pipeline pumping stations have no electricty. No gas, no stove, no boiling water. Hope you thought to get that extra container of propane for your grill!
While dude is complaining about temporare loss of SOME modernity, there are people near him who’ve lost *everything*. Instead of complaining that he’s w/o a few things he’s accustomed to, temporarily, he *might*, *might* offer up a word of thanks that he still HAS his children, house, all the things in it. But no, he’s complaining. Meanwhile, some people have lost *everything* in this storm. We’ll feel sorry for them, instead. They’re decidedly *not* able to post on the internet and complain about it. And, complain they’re not getting appropriate sympathy. I’m just going to BET here, that those people currently w/o ANYTHING wouldn’t feel very sorry for him, either.
We don’t *like* complainers down here. Not. At. All.
And I lived up north, for nearly 10 years. The first time there is serious, serious social unrest or a *real* civil disaster you’ll be boiling each other in pots. NO preparedness up there. At all. Nature will get you for that one day. We *might* feel sorry for *some* of you. Only some, mind you.
Move north? Southern folk rarely come up here on vacation...during tourist season in New England; it is a rare occasion to see a vehicle with 'southern' license plates on it. The only car I have ever seen with Tennessee plates up here was my own... :-)
I suggest you revisit those threads.
This is a meet and greet compared to those threads. They were very nasty with many of the same freepers now squalling about their floods today celebrating the purging of New Orleans
and hooting it up with Lootie and pretending Bush's FEMA guy was just perfect
and so forth
Katrina is the 4th largest loss of life hurricane in US history total history and has left by my estimation 100s of square miles of near permanent destruction...maybe more.
Much of north east New Orleans and of course the lower 9th ward will never be rebuilt...and maybe it shouldn't. St Bernard's parish had near total destruction of structures..a county totally wiped out. The Mississippi Gulf Coast is still 6 years later a dirt strip...where many of the live oaks did survive thankfully...but it's a wasteland path 150-400 yards wife for 25 miles along Hwy 90 beach...that was once lush and beautiful and had finally gotten back to normal after Camille in 1969. Katrina ..a weaker storm..lingered and just wiped it out. Maybe 10-15% rebuilt in 6 years...very little survived...towns like Mississippi City and Long Beach virtually destroyed...Waveland beach...Pass Christian...huge destruction
1836 dead...
How many folks here who post have ever even seen it?...a few
This storm got so much hype to start with due to where government and news folks live...the Carolinas where it came ashore got short shrift and they all focused on the Big Apple.
And now it appears, that Vermont has gotten the brunt of it. I don't think it's appropriate to celebrate libs in VT getting flooded anymore than it was to celebrate purging New Orleans and that New Orleans should be left to whither and all that.
and one last note...if you know New Orleans and the coast like I do, you will learn that some things that went on there in the aftermath of the storm no one speaks of...in hushed tones...depravity..panic and reactions to that which those who survived prefer to forget..New Orleans has 100s of those stories locked away...never be unprepared after an event like that in an urban environment..a hard lesson
Exactly. 'Self-sufficiency' is a lost art...while people were flooding into the stores for bottled water, others were sitting home quietly filling containers from their tap...just in case. Others ALREADY had batteries; since storms knock out power ALL the time in New Hampshire. Others are home canning this year's harvest for food in the face of the inevitable power losses this winter.
Don't be dependent, folks...be independent. Storms happen, and will CONTINUE to happen. It is a sunny day...stock up.
Southerners ALL know what kind of verbal abuse THEY will be in for the next time a southern city is shut down by a couple of inches of snow...the same people complaining about Irene will be back to mock the dumb hillbillies who can’t handle a little snow. You know it’s coming...
Thank you once again, Wardaddy.
I know this is off topic, but I’ve wondered what the Regime would have up their sleeve if this storm had happened right around election day in 2012.....extended voting for the area? Nationwide delay of the election?
Agnes in 1972 was just a tropical storm when it hit the NE. It ended up being the most destructive tropical system to date as far as dollar amount of damage, and the only non-major hurricane name retired at that point in history.
Freshwater flooding is the leading killer in hurricanes, and mere tropical storms in the mountains of the NE can create a lot of that. Which is why those of us who live in this region pay close attention to what you believe to be a measily little event.
please zot my post...indiscriminate fire even for me...and hurtful to decent folks here hit with my same broad brush...thank you
It was a pretty good tropical storm in my opinion. The hurricane winds were mostly off the coasts. It was a sizable storm because it fell apart pretty much before it hit land. It covered quite an extensive area. The destruction came from mostly rain in many states. Other than that, the winds had some damage but all in all nothing like the hurricanes that hit in 03, 99, etc... The nor’easter did just as much damage in Virginia last year (or the year before) from my recollections. It was 24/7’d as the storm of the century only because it was headed for the cities that house the elite media.
Brattleboro is a lovely city and a leftist haven.
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