I was away on August 23rd when an earthquake struck in Virginia. When I got a call to ask me if I'd felt it, I had to admit that I hadn't because I'd been in the car for much of the day, but it had been felt here in the valley as well as in the western county where I was staying.
Five days later, Hurricane Irene hit Jersey, one state to the east. We caught the edge of it and it came with some mighty winds and rain in biblical proportions. Trees fell. Big things got blown around. Some folks were left without power for a week or longer as electric companies worked around the clock to restore service as fast as they claimed they could. I was stuck taking the car to work instead of the scooter.
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| Roots and all came right up as Hurricane Irene's caboose rolled through. |
Advance the clock a week and in came Tropical Storm Lee to further drench an already saturated northeastern Pennsylvania and cause catastrophic flooding throughout the valley and within feet of my own house. With just about every other school district around for miles closed down tight for two days, mine stayed open.
Thank God for the arrival of the fall beers, just in time, at the local distributor!
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| My house is four doors away from here, but we didn't flood in the" big one of '72" so the neighbors and I stayed put. |
I generally mark the official arrival of winter by the closing of the gates at the county sports complex near the Forty Fort airport, and likewise I celebrate the arrival of spring, regardless of what the calendar says, by the opening of those same gates. Today, on my approach to said portal, I was stopped in my tracks by this stretch of flooding.
Here's hoping that nature will take her mischief to somewhere else for a while. A week or so of pure sunshine would be much appreciated.
3 comments:
Joe, I am sure glad the weather didn't affect you with too much adversity. I bet there were a few anxious moments, though. I wouldn't have minded if you had diverted a little of that rain our direction. We could have used it, (still can). We just have had blazing heat this year, but it appears that autumn may yet make an appearance here, much to our relief.
Jim
As to the required water depth:
The water isn't deep enough until it is!
Glad it wasn't worse for you. These kind of events mean more when you realize you have friends affected, don't they?
So? Are you still with us? This lengthy sebatical is a little troubling.
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