IRENE.... Gone, but left a legacy of Inland Flooding

The irony of tonight is that although Hurricane Irene is gone, far away up in Canada somewhere.... her misery hangs on in the form of inland flooding and a climbing death toll.

This has always been an issue for me that bothered the heck out of me. Everyone focuses on the landfall, the sexy photo shot that the media races to get first...

"Coney Island Beach"

But, the beach took the storm just fine and up, far away, inland people died in motel rooms from floods and being rescued just in time from roof tops, a lot of people have died and the death toll is still climbing. Each death a personal drama with mourners and sadness and regrets of "what ifs" and what might have changed the end result. Just one or two different decisions and maybe... just maybe.... what if...

If only there was as much emphasis on the effects of Hurricanes far inland and less of a reliance to let the National Weather Service cover that part of the story.

I'm sorry...but it's like the NHC is Superman and the NWS is the understudy that no one pays attention to in the real world. That's wrong, because the NWS does their job and they do issue warnings but they do it in real time as the effects of the storm become evident, when the final path is figured out and when we figure out which model was right. There are no 3 day Flash Flood Warnings put out by the NWS and people who are glued to the television are only watching the cone put out by the NHC.

Reality bites and it bites hard far away from the beaches and points of landfall.

My daughter was out already at the beach in Brooklyn I believe, others I know went early on... staring out at the water and feeling the wind. Upstate and beyond the metropolitan areas the drama is still going on and will continue going on after Katia forms off the coast of Africa.

She's already gone, but her misery lives on and on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BWvqPm6GbU

Links to some sad stories that are still being played out tonight while Brooklyn and NYC cleans up.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1s2CJA/www.vosizneias.com/wp/90278/2011/
08/28/brooklyn-woman-trapped-in-motel-found-dead-by-rescuers/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1uVw8g/www.vosizneias.com/wp/90281/2011/08/28/
sullivan-county-ny-urgent-update-upstate-summer-residents-urged-to-remain-indoors/



(That's not a scene from the movie Houseboat...that's the real thing)

Vermont is really underwater in some areas, put "Vermont" into a Twitter feed and it goes on and on and on... miles of misery that Irene left behind.

.....for me it's been a long day after a long night and I'm going to bed early. It hit me tonight that it's Sunday night and the radio is quiet in my house and yet the song is playing on and on with all the illogical fragmented lyrics swirling timelessly in space so am ending this hear and putting up one last song.

For Matt:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iP0q1xIkB4

Sweet Tropical Dreams,

Bobbi