As a Malmesbury born girl, when I moved to America I was glad that my job took me to Westchester County in New York as it is far away from anywhere where natural disasters is expected. Then on August 23rd my housekeeper informed me that New York city, which is only a 40 minute drive away, had just been hit by a small earthquake, I joked with friends that it was almost disappointing that we didn’t feel anything. The next day my Boss told me her friends would most likely have to come home early from their holiday as a hurricane had hit the Bahama’s where this family were staying. This was horrible news, but the Bahama’s seemed a million miles away and I did not expect that this weather would somehow effect us in any other way. By Thursday morning you could feel a definite change, we had strong winds, grey skies, thunder, and heavy rain, so heavy in fact, my windscreen wipers, even on top speed, failed to keep up with the amount of water falling from the sky, and I struggled to see through it well enough to drive. The rain continued on and off through the night, Friday morning it seemed everything had cleared up apart from this sickly humidity outside which is always warning something is coming.
Friday brought with it a hectic morning of running to the shop to stock up on supplies as Westchester County was on hurricane watch. We had been told we may run out of water, and loose our electricity by Sunday. My normal Friday morning grocery shop had turned into something of a nightmare, the fruit and veg isles were all but empty, people were running around with trollys filled to the top and running outside to get another. I managed to pick up the last gallon bottle of water and picked up a few large containers of 24 water bottles. Within 20 mins the entire 5m by 1m shelf, which was full when I collected my bottles, was emptied, it was hard even getting to the shelves as so many people wanted to get to the water. By Friday night, White Plains had been declared in a state of emergency.
Luckily despite the state of emergency Friday night was like another other, warm and dry. My friend and I ventured into New York city where we spent the evening on a roof top, which had a clear view of the empire state building. Between the hours of 1am and 5am on Saturday morning we watched the whole top portion get engulfed by a large cloud.
All public transport on Saturday was cancelled past 12pm to ensure maximum public safety, forcing all local visitors to leave the city. I was on the first train of the day into White Plains at 5.40am which was filled with people trying to get a room in the already sold out hotels.
By 6 o’clock all the shops in White Plains were closing down, shouting “Irene is coming, everyone out”, police officers were walking the streets asking people to move their cars off the roads and instead move them to covered parking towers which were offering free parking in preparation.
Even if you had no connection to the outside world, and hadn’t heard about the hurricane it was obvious something was coming humidity was at 98% making it hard to breathe and the pressure change could be felt. The main road into White Plains was extremely busy with everyone from Mamaroneck, which is situated on the Long Island sound, the road out of of White Plains was all but empty, a very unusual sight for Saturday evening.
Later on Mamaroneck, New Rochelle and other coastal towns were evacuated, as well as many people in New York city. Many buildings have been opened up as rescue centers, including schools and fire stations. Families have been able to bring pets with them, provided they have proof of up to date rabies vaccinations.
Most of the coastal towns have experienced bad flooding, and further inland have had heavy winds and rain which has broken branches and made windows rattle, however hurricane Irene lost a lot of it’s power and force before it got to New York. We have been hit by a bad storm, but it that was the worst of it.
