So here's the update... I have been fielding calls from friends worried about mom and about the post-hurricane effects on her and on Vermont. I feel like the field reporter at the beach with a microphone so that people can hear the wind. This is what it sounds like...
We weathered the storm itself in NYC pretty easily. I expected deluges and wind that would blow the window panes out of the old frames... and air conditioners dropping onto the terraces below or the courtyard between the two sides of the building. I expected airborne patio tables and terra cotta pots smashing through the windows, and I thought longingly of the value of plywood sheets in times like these. I expected power outages and had dug up a crank operated radio from layers of life like an archaeological dig. Well, ok, that's an exaggeration. It was in my car because it also has a crank flashlight, a crank emergency siren, and a crank cell phone charger (not that the cell phone charger would fit into the orifice of the radio).
And nothing. We had some rain. My friends said there were 6+ inches, but it didn't sound like much on the housing of the air conditioner which is still in the window as of today. And there were some windy hours on Sunday afternoon, especially when I walked to the Hudson River with my friends. It was an amazing stroll with the wind stopping me in my tracks, and pulling the glasses off my face. There were pelting rain drops and trees that looked like they were about to be airborne. I was struck by the number of businesses that were closed, with employees who couldn't get to work as public transit had been shut down. The restaurants that delivered pizza in the winter snow storm at Christmas, weren't delivering pizza on Sunday. There were several below street grade residences that had piles of sandbags beside their windows.
Anyway, it passed and we were / are ok.
I put some of the books back on their window sills and left the rest for mom's assistant, Cherry to take care of.
Braving cautions to stay another day, I decided to return to VT on Monday. Yes, it is my "happy place" as H describes it, but more, I wanted to see what damage had been done. I fully expected to be finding mice on little rafts in the basement, with parasols and blue martinis by their sides.
I left my fate in the hands of the GPS though I over-rode its efforts to send me to the Holland Tunnel. My chosen route is through the Lincoln Tunnel onto the Turnpike north and then Rte 80 to New Jersey's outlet corridor in Paramus on Rte 17 where gas is relatively cheap compared to Vermont and the New York area, and they will actually pump it for you, and clean your windshield. (Remember free drinking glasses with a fill-up?) .
That was pretty easy, but I knew parts of the Northway at Exits 15 to 17 and exits 27 to 28 were closed--or at least they had been til 11:42 a.m. according to Google's traffic maps. The GPS routed me onto the Garden State Parkway and from there to the Palisades which I haven't been on since I was a teenager. It is a truly beautiful road, and it was moving fairly well despite a fair amount of traffic. I decided to take a bathroom break at the "Rest stop and Bookstore" (!!) but the power was out and the bathrooms were disabled - a disappointment to the hordes of Hasidic families that were making a stop on their way to and from the Catskills.
The GPS routed me onto Rt. 6 West and then Rt. 17 which happened to run alongside the Eileen Fisher outlet and the edge of the enormous Woodbury Commons outlet development. I stopped to use the bathroom at Staples, bought a new jacket at Eileen Fisher and turned onto the Northway, where there was a car about a quarter mile ahead, and one about a half mile behind, and NO OTHER cars. The south-bound lanes were empty until I suddenly saw the beginning of what turned out to be a roughly 20 mile parking lot of cars heading south on the Northway (or more accurately pointed south. They weren't heading anywhere).
At Poughkeepsie, traffic began to pick up heading north and eventually the traffic in the southbound lanes also opened up, and I drove to Troy where I left the road, knowing that the highway would again be closed en route to Glens Falls. From there I took Rte 40 through eastern New York state and then began the challenge of zigzagging on roads across the rivers that had flooded the little towns throughout this section of what I suspect was Washington County. A corn field was SUBMERGED between the road and the Battenkill River. A tractor-trailer that had started down a country road that had been marked "Closed," decided to turn around in a country lane with the only option being to back his rig up a hill in a farm field and inch his cab back into a U turn. There were lovely ponds and lakes along both sides of the roads, that had been farm fields two days before. There were herds of cows grazing on hillsides above muddy rivers that used to be streams. I found myself alternately imagining sleeping the night in the car, and celebrating when I came out on a familiar stretch of road, only to have hopes dashed as I encountered yet another "ROAD CLOSED" sign. As I got closer to home, I made decisions based on topography - where would the road climb, and where would it run along the river or the lake? Where would the ground be least likely to have run-off from a low-lying meadow?
I got home about 7 1/2 hours after I started, and was stunned to see dahlias on the dahlias, tomatoes on the tomatoes, rudbeckia and sunflower blossoms, though two of the sunflower stalks were down on the ground. The hanging plants had been tenderly placed on the ground by friends, and the roof was still on the house. There were no mouse rafts in the basement.
This morning, I picked yellow and patty pan squash, tomatoes, flowers and an enormous soccer ball sized puff ball - dense with a kind of mealy flesh. I checked the corn but will wait til tonight to pick one and see if it is ripe. The houseplants which were in the garage (thanks Emmett and Kerstin!) are back under the maple and where there are a few small twigs on the ground, the laundry is hanging, drying on the line. The Francois had a leak in their roof that dripped into the kitchen and two "geriatric" maples are damaged at David and MaryLou's. The ground is pretty spongy everywhere and the rock on which the bridge rested, accessing our little park, is gone. Alida and Rodney's sweet corn is gone, but it won't make a major dent in the dairy operation. We escaped pretty unscathed. Still, I am going to go over to the place where I pick wild ramps (onions) later today, to see whether the river flooded them out.
The Simon Pearce restaurant and shop in Quechee has lost its covered bridge, glassblowing operation and the hydro generator that ran it, but the restaurant and retail store are ok. Covered bridges are down all over the state and some towns are cut off. Rt. 7 is a major north-south road. Rt. 4 and Rt. 103 are major east west roads. All have been breached and are now impassable. (See below) It isn't at all clear how H will get here from Boston on Friday.
The CEO and President of the Vermont-based phone and internet company "V-Tel" which provides my service, have sent two emails. They expect to have service restored by tonight to 100% of their customers despite major damage:
"Sunday was the worst flooding any of our employees recall every seeing – and some have been with us 40 years. Governor Shumlin said in a New York Times story today 'We prepared for the worst, and hoped for the best, and unfortunately got delivered the worst.' VTel emergency crews, in some cases last night, were isolated by flooding, unable to access broken fiber under flooded roads, but also prevented by police and fire emergency personnel from fording streams to reach other areas. Our redundant fiber rings were cut on both the western and eastern sides of Vermont, and also en route to Boston, and also west-to-east connecting Springfield to Wallingford, and also north-to-south connecting Springfield to Hartland, Chester to Grafton, and Wallingford to Killington. In cases where our fiber is (or was) on bridges that washed away, or under roads that eroded, the repairs require coordination. By far the most-isolated of our service area is Killington, where our fiber ring follows Route 4 and Route 100, and both roads washed out. "
Then he included the home and cell phone numbers for the President and himself, along with their office numbers. And he said: "Thanks to all who took time to call. Almost everyone was very tolerant and gracious, and I wish we had better repair news. One caller even took time to explain to my wife how to fix our water well.
When was the last time you had that kind of email from the CEO of Verizon or AT&T?
So that's Vermont post-Irene where, as Garrison Keillor would say, "all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average."
I am off to find mushrooms to make spore prints... Oh yes, and do some work....
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