The storm is done. At least here. Winds are light in my
region, though they may still gust quite strongly for the remainder of today.
It looks like the storm maxed out here at 8:00-9:00pm EDT yesterday, and
Baltimore Washington International recorded gusts near 60mph at that time. So
far, over 6” of rain fell here that can be attributed to Sandy. The flood
danger is not yet over, as rivers and reservoirs will continue to rise as
rainwater runoff flows into them. Over 185,000 customers in Eastern Maryland
are without power, still several thousand more in DC and nearby areas, and
Western Maryland is currently under quite a bit of snow. Areas on the
Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Coasts? Well, we’ll be hearing about just how bad
the damage there is over the next few days.
Experiencing a weather event of this magnitude is always
strange for me. In some ways, I thrive on chaos. It forces my mind to focus on
one thing, whereas I’d otherwise be thinking of 5 things at once. So, it’s very
strange when the storm’s over, because often I start to think “That’s it? What
do I do now?” At the same time, I know there are thousands upon thousands of
other people within just a couple hundred miles of me wishing that they could
think “That’s it?” after the storm has passed through. I also know that if the
storm’s track had been just a little bit different; if the storm had traveled just
a little bit further south, the damage here could have been devastating. While
I can look out the window and see no noticeable damage across the street, I can
also look around the windows, within my apartment, and see that the structure
itself was stressed in the storm. Relatively substantial cracks in the drywall
developed around the windows at the front of my apartment, presumably from the
windows flexing in and out with the wind. Had the winds been much stronger than
30 or 40mph sustained with 50 to 60mph gusts, I do not know how long that wall
would have held up.
A proper “After the Storm” post may come later. May…
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