Hurricane Irene aftermath as of 8am Aug 28th

Here in town the aftermath is mostly water in basements, which the local volunteer fire company pumps out.   My mother's house is one of them.  Also, from my house all I can see is minor branches down, no major trees and we still have power as of 8:17 am EDT.

This is not the first time this month that the firemen have been pumping basements in town this year.  We have had a very wet summer with about 10 inches of rain locally just in August.  The water table is very high, so when they mention possible flooding of area streams that means water in basements from underground streams too.

Hurricane Irene is not completely gone yet but the storm could have been so much worse already.  There are still winds around so not safe from trees coming down yet.

Earthquake centered in Virginia caused house to shake up here

It was a shallow one centered in Virginia with magnitude 5.9.  Made the house shake and creak here in South New Jersey but no damage.  Curious to me is that it was more of an adventure that scary.  I think that is because I experienced the February 2001 earthquake in Seattle that was was more severe (8+), lasted longer (40-45 seconds), and was as loud as if a train was speeding directly at you from less than a hundred feet.  By that I mean the sound of the other earthquake was not only loud but had a lot of deep harmonics that you felt as well as heard.

Everyone is safe here and no damage to buildings.  Just another adventure.