As many of you know, Hurricane Irene swept up the east coast on Saturday afternoon and evening, bringing lots of wind and rain along with it. Sadly, our neighborhood didn’t fare very well with high wind gusts slamming a bunch of giant trees down on power lines, roads, and even homes.
Thankfully, our house was spared. But many of our neighbors and friends weren’t so lucky. It broke our hearts to look out from our patio to see that a tree in our neighbor’s yard had fallen onto their home (it easily could have hit ours if it fell in the other direction).
Thankfully although they were both home with their two dogs at the time, no one was hurt. But parts of their house are flooded and shattered, and we’re so sad for them – and anyone else whose family or house has been affected.
When it came to what we did during the storm, we just hunkered down at home between 6pm to midnight when the winds were at their worst. And after hearing/seeing a few large trees come down on our block we decided to sleep in interior rooms, just to have a bit more protection in the event that something fell on our house (since our basement is below grade, we worried it could flood – which is why we opted for interior rooms over lower level spaces). Clara slept in the hallway in a pack and play (since it was insulated by rooms on all sides)…
… and John and I dragged the not-as-heavy-as-ours mattress from the guest room into the kitchen (which is also in the middle of our house).
Thankfully our basement didn’t flood and although we have a bunch of branches and debris to clean up on our yard (along with a few larger tree limbs in the back) we feel incredibly fortunate.
We’re still without power along with what we hear are around 800,000 other Richmonders (ours went out around 5pm on Saturday, so we’re on our third day without it). We’re hoping to have it restored soon, but realistically know that it could be a few more days or even one to two weeks (a statement that they just released alludes to the latter of those timelines). A number of trees on the power lines in our neighborhood means that it might be a while for us, so our blogging schedule may be a bit irregular until our area is back up and running. We also might not be able to keep up with comments, facebook, and twitter as much as we’d like (since you know we’re usually so chatty), but we do have plans to stop in with the afternoon giveaway as usual, and hope that everyone else who is dealing with any sort of storm repercussions is doing ok.
Oh and we felt compelled to check on our first house and were so relieved to see that it appeared to make it through. Although there was a huge tree on the house across the street. Scary stuff.
Between this and the earthquake on Tuesday, we’re ready to be done with natural disasters for a while – especially since it’s rare for either of them to affect Richmond so much (the last major storm in our area was Isabel in 2003, and most Richmonders were without power for about a week). Let’s hope we’re back up and running sooner than that. Luckily a few of our relatives do have power and enough food/water to go around. In fact here’s Clara on Sunday morning after the storm passed and we headed over to Grammy’s house, where there’s power, glorious power (which seems to be a rarity in our city). We joked that all of the chaos drove her into the arms of her cousin John…
… where they watched a video together and had a grand old time.
Thanks so much to everyone on twitter, facebook, and here in the comments who checked in on us this weekend. You have no idea how much we appreciate the love and send it right back atcha. And for anyone else who was affected, we’d love to hear from you about how you’re doing.
Stephanie says
So glad you guys are ok!!
I live in northwest NJ, and thankfully Irene was just a tropical storm by the time she reached us. There were a lot of leaves and twigs in our yard and our pond overflowed, but that was it. A few of our neighbors’ basements flooded though… I have never been so glad to live in a home on a slab foundation!
Lindsay@Tell'er All About It says
Glad you made it though all right!!! Hopefully your neighbors are okay as well!
Rachael says
So glad to hear that you are safe and sound. Times like these remind us of all the things we have to be thankful for like family, health, and having a home…
Take care :)
Wrenaria says
Wow! How devastating. To echo everyone else: I feel so bad for your neighbors and am so glad you guys are okay! Really scary stuff. It’s crazy to see such huge trees torn out of the ground like they’re toothpicks. Thanks for sharing the pics. Hope you get power soon. <3
Sabrina says
I am around the Ithaca area so we only got some small gusts. Though one made my apple tree almost completely fall over :( I am hoping when my husband gets home from work he can prune some of it back and maybe that will help.
My family/friends are on Long Island. One of my friends had a tree go through and completely demolish her car and the other had about 4 feet of water come up from the canals into her house. Things could have been a lot worse though.
Aron says
Sending you our thoughts, prayers and dollars from California. Stay safe.
priscilla says
So glad ya’ll are ok!
Here’s one of the best Hurricane Preparedness plans you can get: from the State of Florida, who is, unfortunately, the expert on hurricanes, with 5 times more hurricanes than any other state.
http://www.floridadisaster.org/family/
What’s so cool is that you read and fill this out, based on your individual circumstances, and you will find out what you need. (Example: children ages, any pets, basement or not, etc).
Tree damage is usually the cause of death and injury and we all love our trees, but they can be deadly. Remember about every 3 years to have an arborist come assess your trees. Many are rotting/dead inside but we don’t know it.
YoungHouseLove says
Thanks so much for the link!
xo,
s
Kat @ Big Apple Little Kitchen says
I’m glad you guys are OK. So sad about your neighbors; we’ll keep them in our thoughts. We had a rough night with the hurricane, but thankfully came out with little flooding.
Katie says
So glad that you all are ok. I love reading all of the hope and optimism in your blog and am so glad that Irene did not take that away from you.
What a vicious storm. Sad to see all of the damage. Take care.
OwningSingle says
Glad you all are ok. I live in Houston so hurricanes are a familiar thing to me and they can be scary. After Hurricane Ike I was without electricity AND water for 13 days! I hope yours is up sooner than that.
Anna See says
Soooo glad you are okay! We were spared the worst of it here. Our neighbor’s truck got squashed by a huge tree, but I was surprised none of ours came down.
Maggie says
Glad you’re okay. I have family in Boston, they also had a tree fall on power lines, and it will be a couple of days before they have power restored. It makes you appreciate modern amenities like electric power, clean water, and so on, much more when you don’t have them, but the most important thing is that you are safe.
Nicole says
Glad to see that your family is safe along with your home! I know how scary a hurricane can be, my husband and I went through Hurricane Thomas in Oct while we were on our honeymoon in St. Lucia. We had no idea what to do since we are from Ca! Hope you get some power soon and stay safe!
Nikki
Nicole says
We’re so glad you and your family are doing well. So sad to see your neighbors home. On a positive note, everyone is ok. Stuff can be replaced but family and friends NOWAY.
Love Clara, she always puts a smile on my face, she made my day. Stay safe. :)
Jill says
As a faithful lurker and lover of your blog, I just wanted to let you know that I’m thinking about you and hoping for a quick recovery in your neighborhood. Glad to know everyone is all right!
Mark says
Reminds me a lot of when Ike hit us back in ’08. Had 4 trees down that did damage to the house/deck/truck, but only 2 were ours. Three days with a chainsaw and about a dozen neighbors later and we were cleaned up. Looks like you got really lucky with no major damage. We had the opposite experience, where we were about the worst off, but still not as bad as your neighbor looks like. No power for almost 7 days, I feel you on that front as well. It’s a great chance to have a cookout with all of the stuff from the fridge/freezer that’s about to go bad and get to know all of the neighbors. Make the best of it.
Bob Urbanowski says
Damage to your home (or those of your neighbors) is tough, but just think that it could have been so much worse – try to be thankful that more people haven’t been hurt.
carolinaheartstrings says
Glad to hear no damage to your home or persons! Take care of each other.
lauren says
wow…so glad your house made it! scary stuff that you east coasters are dealing with. I always thought we had it bad on the west with the earthquakes..now you arent spared either.
Good luck with the clean up.
Kate says
So glad to hear you’re all safe. I’m in Lake George, NY and we got hit hard! The village is under water, boats floating in the middle of the lake…still attached to the docks! trees down, roads washed out…we actually fared much better than Vermont. It seems that they got hit very hard. MAJOR flooding and roads wiped out. luckily, its beautiful out today and everyone seems to be in good spirits as the cleanup begins!
Shaundra Coleman says
Glad to hear that everyone is safe and sound. My heart goes out to your neighbors. I live in Chesterfield and luckily didnt suffer any damage. I am without power but for this area that is normal. That just makes for earlier bedtimes and less being plugged in. Two things that I can welcome and appreciate.
Tara says
Phew! Glad to hear you guys are safe. We’re down in Newport News and got lucky. We never lost power and only a few limbs and pinecones to clean up yesterday morning. My parents in SW Connecticut and my in-laws in Boston all lost power for 24h.
Our 22-month old twins didn’t even realize there was a hurricane going on. Just like they were oblivious to the earthquake. Gotta love kids and their resiliency.
sarah honce says
thanks for the update! so glad to hear you are ok. been thinking about everyone on the east coast and praying for you!
Jamie says
Thoughts and prayers to you and your neighbors! Irene has caused devastating damage to much of Vermont as well- we can handle two feet of snow, but we certainly aren’t used to hurricanes. It is so sad to see many of the beautiful, old, historic covered bridges just being swept away in floods.
EmmalinaLolly says
Really glad that you and your families are okay with zero to minimal damage! We’re over here in Harrisonburg and nothing really happened at all. The worst thing that happened during our edge of the storm was some tomcat attacked my cat (but she made it out without a scratch!). So not even Irene-relatd. My sister had to evacuate from NYC and we’re hoping her apartment is fine.
Hope your power is restored soon!
Chris says
Glad to hear that you are all safe… Our prayers for everyone in the Northeast continue.
Deidra says
So glad you’re all safe and sound. Our baby got to sleep in our hallway (the only real interior non-windowed space in our house) in her Pack ‘n Play during tornado warnings her first week home from the hospital. That doesn’t do good things for a new momma’s heart!
kelsey says
that is so so scary. i am so glad that you guys are alright, but it is very sad to see all your friends and neighbors houses with big trees through them. we had a weird storm a few weeks ago and a pine tree fell on my car and our extra truck and we were so happy that it didn’t hit the house. on the upside, as long as no one was hurt, think of all the potential house crashing you can do with your neighbors since many will be renovating!
xin says
Glad everyone is ok. It looks really bad, all those giant trees, and those poor houses. Up here around Boston, we just has some gusty wind and heavy rain. West MA got the worst. But still a couple of my neighbor’s trees got badly damaged, almost all branches are on the ground, only the trunks are still standing. We really worried about our oak tree right outside the bedroom, but it didn’t break. The trellis system I built 6 years ago around our deck (for the vegetable beds) collapsed, but all my potted plants on the deck were unharmed. So strange!
Anyway, that was a great idea to stay in the interior rooms. Did Irene scare Clara and Burger? Hope you get your power back soon, so we can read more about the clean up and other updates. Yeah, you already got your fair share of disasters for the decade, things can only get better from here.
YoungHouseLove says
Thankfully both Burger and Clara were calm for Irene. Burger was mighty freaked out by the earthquake though! Sweet Clara had no idea what was going on either time.
xo,
s
Stacy says
I’m glad you guys made it through ok. I’m out in Short Pump & was lucky enough to be in a small pocket that NEVER lost power!!! We were also lucky enough to not lose any trees. We have some big ones too. I spent a 12 hr shift in the Henrico County EOC (Emergency Operations Center) answering phones & giving out info. One lady called in 4 times asking questions about Va Beach. Like if it was open & do you take I95 to get there. I should’ve said YES, TAKE I95! Hahaha!
Cat says
I feel for ya! I live in MA and my neighborhood looks the exact same way :( We have been without power since about yesterday at 8:30 in the morning. Thank god for Panera and their free wifi.
Mel Heth says
So glad you guys are okay. Your poor neighbors. My heart goes out to everyone in the east right now!
Christen says
Glad you all are okay! I feel your pain; my husband and I have been without power since 11:00 am Saturday, and have been camping out at the local Martin’s for WIFI ever since. So I’m done with disasters too! (Thankfully, the “earthquake” really didn’t affect Richmond at all! I know other parts of Virginia were not as lucky though…)
Cassity @ Remodelaholic says
Sorry to see all the destruction. I am so glad you all are okay! And that at least your neighbors are safe, even if they have to do a little rebuilding.
kat says
Glad to hear you are ok.
In Canada, we didn’t get much damage where we are but sure thought about all you guys on the East Coast!
All the best!
Kat
Jess says
I’m glad you are all okay! I know how scary hurricanes can be. My husband and I survived Ike in 2008 in Houston, but our detached garage and 8 trees on our property didn’t fare as well. Plus we were without power for 17 days! I hope the lights come back on soon for you :)
Meghan, UK says
Oh wow, so good to see this post today. It’s so weird how the blogosphere makes you feel closer to strangers, and having read your blog for quite a while I was thinking about you all weekend. So glad to hear you’re all safe and well. Keep safe.
Sarah says
I think we’re also very close to you on the southside but we were lucky — just a big tree split in the front yard, a gigantic branch down in the back and my frayed nerves. Our power miraculously stayed on the whole time with only a few flickers. Our old house in the Near West End (which, by the way, looks like a war zone with so many trees down) did not make out so well. A gigantic old oak slammed into it crushing the front porch, windows and roof. We just moved out two months ago! Luckily, the new owner was not harmed. Scary stuff.
YoungHouseLove says
Oh my gosh- that’s so scary! So glad no one was hurt!
xo,
s
Kate says
Glad to hear you guys are alright. Your poor neighbors! I love huge old trees but that’s pretty frightening.
I just wanted to pop in and point out this diy project that was just posted on Apartment Therapy — using an old shutter as a bathroom counter! It reminded me of the style of your living room console: http://www.re-nest.com/re-nest/before-after/before-after-an-old-shutter-turned-bathroom-counter-reader-project-154834
YoungHouseLove says
Such a fun project! Thanks for the link!
xo,
s
Bethley says
Glad YHL is ok! I’m on the DC/MD border and our power came back on today. Some up here aren’t so lucky. I can’t believe how far reaching this storm was! Good luck to your neighborhood. I’m not sure I’d stick around if a Cat 3 ever comes through.
Katy says
So glad you made it through safely. I can’t believe the root network from that tree that fell on your neighbor’s house! It really shows the power of that wind that it knocked over a tree so tightly bound to the ground. Yikes!
Carly says
So great to hear you’re okay! I was thinking about you guys as I was watching the hurricane coverage (you’re the only people I “know” in Richmond), as it looked like your area would be getting a good dose of Irene. I live in Connecticut and have never experienced a hurricane, until now. I’m from Buffalo, blizzards are more my style, but we were extremely lucky with this one. We didn’t even lose power. Glad to hear your beautiful family and home are safe and sound! Hope the power comes back soon!
Monique says
Glad to hear you guys are OK. A reader suggested you help a neighbor redecorate. What a great idea! And if some of the supplies can be donated, it’s a win win. But seriously, hurricanes are nothing to play around with. With these storms, things can go bad so quickly and there’s not a weatherman out there who can tell us exactly what is going to happen.
Hope your power is restored soon and the pic of Clara and her buddy…so precise. It kind of put everything in perspective. Yeah, the storm caused havoc but in the end you still have each other and the lovely Clara and all is right in the world.
Gina says
Glad to hear you “weathered” the storm ok. Hopefully, your power will be back soon but thank goodness you’re all ok. Irene was no joke. Up here in NY there are still lots of people without power as well and tons of downed trees. It’s amazing how many huge trees came down. Glad none landed on your house!
Adrianne says
Relieved to hear you guys are okay! I hope the power comes back soon. Reminds me of when Hurricane Fran hit central NC! Scary stuff! Sorry to see the damage done in your neighborhood. My thoughts are with you!
Erin says
Sending some solidarity from CT – we’re some of the 500K+ without power up here and we, too are hearing a week before restoration of service. Thankfully my MIL never lost power, so I’m using her internet and hot water!
Ever so thankful that you all are okay – and I appreciate your perspective – this is such an inconvenience, but it could have been so much worse.
Jen says
I’m so glad you guys are okay, and that’s really sad about your neighbors. Glad they are okay though.
I lived in Norfolk during hurricane Isabel, and we made the best of it by having a hurricane party which was actually a lot of fun. I was pretty tired of PBJ’s for dinner by the end of the week. Not having power for a while makes one really appreciate it when it comes back on.
I live in Portland now, and it just rains. No cool thunderstorms or crazy hurricanes. Just rain :(
Be safe hunkering down! You should also check on the stability of your many trees. Irene may not have downed some, but made them less secure, and all it takes is a windy day or another rainstorm to topple them :( Maybe your neighborhood can have a community cleanup, which would be a little more fun and less daunting.
Katelyn says
My husband and I weather Irene in Turks & Caicos while on our honeymoon! Fortunately we didn’t mind being cooped up for a day or two, and our power was only out for an hour. Really the storm did little to dampen the beauty of paradise.
Sarah says
This is my first natural disaster in Richmond and I’m still floored that the state capitol is susceptible to this kind of stuff! I’ve been without power since Saturday around 5 as well, and my house was saved from the trees (not the case with my less fortunate neighbors…). Here’s hoping it’s back on tonight!
Nicole says
So glad to hear you all are okay! Scary to see how much devastation Irene caused. I live in western NY and we were right on the edge of the storm…crazy wind and clouds but no severe weather thankfully.