Waiting

It's 1:00 PM on Saturday.  Intermittent rain has begun to fall - nothing big so far.  Went out to the grocery store this morning just to pick up some "normal" things, some iced tea, soda, cold cuts, cat litter, etc.  The lines were crazy!  I doubt there's bread, milk, bottled water or a "C" or "D" cell to be had within miles!



From what I've seen on the National Hurricane Center site, we may get off relatively easy.  Looks like Irene hasn't been doing any pushups and may actually be getting weaker.  Irene is scheduled to be about 50 miles directly east of my QTH at around 8:00 AM tomorrow.  Unless things change dramatically between now and then (I hope she doesn't decide to play "pinball" and bounce around the DelMarVa peninsula, picking up steam), she may just barely be a hurricane at that point with sustained winds at that magical 75 MPH mark.

You can never take a hurricane lightly, but it looks like the media (I don't mean the government, I mean the popular media) may have gone overboard once again.  I saw headlines in local papers proclaiming "Storm of a Lifetime?" and "Worst in 50 Years" and stuff like that.  Maybe, in a way, that's a good thing.  It definitely caught the public's eye and made them aware - and that's the good thing.

CERT meeting in less than an hour.  I'll know more about South Plainfield's contingency plans after that.  I do know for a fact, however, that our Department of Public Works has handed out more that 6,500 sandbags this week.  Nice to see that people are actually being proactive for a change.

On the other hand, my dog Jesse, is VERY skitterish today. He just can't seem to find room for himself and is staying close underfoot.  I wonder if he's sensing the coming lowering of barometric pressure or something?

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!