I hope everything turns out OK for you. I see the storm has weakend quite a lot but if you lose your home and your posessions the size does not matter. So all the best.
Sorry, I just felt the need to quote this entirely out of context. 
Seriously, though, thanks very much for your good wishes. It looks like we’ll be fine up here. They’re not predicting any sustained winds above about 35 mph, and most of the storm will go through overnight tonight. I do hope everyone farther south gets through it OK, though. I think most people were pretty well prepared, though, with all the warning we got, so we can hope there will only be a bit of property damage. That can get fixed.
Steven
Just seen on the news here, that DC is getting a kicking, hope you all get through tonight with out too much harm. Looks like it could be floods that will be the worse of it, my Thoughts and Prayers will be with you as I’m tucked warm and save in ma bed 
Just saw the news… center of the storm just making land it looks like. Hoping you all there are finding ways to stay safe and dry! (Course, since the power is going out all over there, we unfortunatly won’t hear from any chiffers in the storms path for a bit.)
Sara (who’s sure to hear all about the storm from her sister-in-law living in N.C.)
A gale ain’t a rose ain’t a piece of cake.
Stay safe, don’t drive unnecessarily, practice…
Show the beautiful, if dramatic, side of it to the kids.
Best wishes from (untypically) sunny Bretagne to you all concerned.
Wow, you guys are so thoughtful!
I hope all of the chiffers affected are staying safe and dry. As for us, the storm will probably miss us, although I’m holding my breath for my hubby and son who are getting on a plane tomorrow. As far as damage, we’re getting a new roof in a few weeks so if we have a big blow, we’re already all set!
Robin
“There are currently over a million people without power.” -MSNBC News
It’s raining here like mad.
All quiet so far in Central New Jersey, a bit of wind. Rain is coming in about 4 hours. though.
Thanks for the words of encourangents and thoughts.
Regards,
Luis
I’m up here in Cleveland, on the North Coast of the USA where we are getting the remnants of Dame Isabel. It has been raining continuously with a stiff breeze for the last 12 hours and it’s expected to continue all day. Mother nature is still more powerful than any weapons of mass destruction that we demented humans can devise. Here’s wishing that all are well in those areas that experienced the full power of the hurricane.
Mike
Up here in Norther New Jersey, we feel like we dodged a bullet. Considering the news coming for the Carolinas, Virginia, Pennsylvania and DC, we really lucked out. The rain was negligible (big break for me: any time excessive rain comes down, it always seems to find its way to my basement… during Floyd, about 350 gallons of it did). The wind, however, was something else: gusts of up to 65mph overnight and it is still whipping around right now, but with a bright blue sky. Sleeping with the windows open last night was a trip.
Hope you guys down south do OK over the next few days.
My thoughts are with you.
Well I live between DC and Baltimore and have had two days off to watch this nasty storm. We have power; but, in Anne Arundel county there are over 180,000 without power (more than half). They are broadcasting that Isabel has left over 4.5 million people without power. 40% of Dorchester county is flooded, Baltimore and Annapolis downtown areas have been damaged by storm surge and tidal flooding from the Chesapeak Bay.
I’m thankfull that so few people have been seriously injured, that was in part because officials closed a lot of transportation services (Metro and Commuter Trains) which forced the Federal and local governments to close. People stayed home and were able to respond to the changing weather. over 400,000 people had thursday off work. The excellent weather forcasts were right on, and we got lucky and the storm move inland quicker, dumping less rain and less wind damage. It was still bad, but it could have been much worse.
The flooding is expected to peak tommorrow along the rivers and is the worst we’ve had in decades. A lot of areas close to the Potomac river are under water from the storm surge and rain run-off. Before the storm the ground was saturated from near record rain fall over the spring and summer; 40 percent more rain than normal. So they expect the run off, especially along the Potomac water shed, will be a continuing problem. Luckily, we are expecting 3 days of sunshine to help dry things up.
The power companies have hundreds of extra workers from Georgia to Wisconsin comming in to assist local crews to restore power.
Our family has faired well through the storm, with no loss of power or phone services. Even our cable has stayed up and running through the whole period. I hope and pray our other C&F folks from the area have done as well.
Hoping everyone in the area recovers quickly so we can have more time to …
I reported earlier in another thread that we did not have any problem. That was before I drove around the area. Most of our traffic lights were out. Power was out in many areas but not all. Trees uprooted all around the area. My daughter lives about 3 or 4 miles away on fairly high ground. She had all of the huge old trees around the house fall over. None of them hit the house or their cars. A neighbors tree fell into their swimming pool. Our condo was a haven of calm in the midst of a lot of damage. I hope everybody made out as well as we did. Keep whistling.
Ron
Hurricane or no hurricane, Duke University refused to close yesterday (they ended up having to close in the evening). Anyway I went in for classes, but by noon things were going downhill, so I left and drove home in some driving rain and wind. Got home to find my partner and dog curled up on the couch, and only 20 minutes later we lost power. So we spent the night playing cards by candlelight while the winds howled and the dog hid under the bed growling. And I have to say, the winds howled- I saw trees bend all sorts of ways i had never seen before.
This morning it was a mess, I live in a forest, so trees everywhere- no flooding though, just trees. They called my partner into school for a teacher work-day (the kids were out but they wanted the teachers there) but when he got to school the school had no power. So we both went to the University for some hot food, a quiet library to work in and a warm shower in the gym.
When we got home though the power was on, and it appears that we won’t have to throw much out of our fridge since everything remained cold. Still trees everywhere- but I have to say, I am very grateful to the men and women in the power crews who did such a quick job restoring the power
-Angela
(I was gonna reply to Ron’s post in the other thread; glad I didn’t.) It’s a disaster here. We took a tree limb through our roof, and there were probably a dozen trees down in our neighborhood, many of them on power lines and at least one took out a large chunk of a house. We just got power back, which went out Thursday afternoon. As of yesterday evening, more than half the traffic lights near us were still not working, and many shopping centers are still closed because they don’t have power. As of last night there were still several hundred thousand people without power.
I hafta admit I wasn’t prepared for the storm to be this severe this far inland. OTOH, it’s been interesting to be without stereo or computer for three days. Unfortunately there’s been so much cleanup that I haven’t had the time to whistle much, and my back hurts too much to play the flute. It’s also been an entertaining challenge trying to figure out meals that use all the things that were thawing first in the freezer.
One thing that really sucked is that there has been no ice to be found since Wednesday (I did have the foresight to get 25 pounds then). Fortunately our neighbors were making a road trip yesterday and filled a cooler for us.
Chas
Our Washington, DC area was hit in strange ways. Some places are absolutely a disaster and others are almost untouched. Within 2 miles of me there are people who have been without power since Thursday at 4:30. They are not expecting power until sometime tomorrow. We did not lose power and the cable TV went out for about a half hour on Saturday. The shopping center across the street from me never closed. Alexandria will just about get cleaned up and the flood waters from upstream will hit. How one perceives this storm depends a lot on were you live in the area.
Ron