Bomb Cyclone #2

A nor'easter was forecast to hit us last Friday.  These storms are a combo of strong winds and some sort of precipitation - rain or snow.  They are fairly common and usually just an annoyance.  We assumed that would be the case with this storm as well.  As always, whenever any type of storm is in the forecast, people start asking about school cancellations, buying all the bread and milk, etc.  On Thursday night, another mom and I were talking about people blowing this storm out of proportion.  We both grew up here.  We've seen it all.  It's just rain.

And then a bomb cyclone was added in there somehow.  If you recall, a bomb cyclone was part of the almost blizzard that hit us back in January, causing extensive damage along the coast.  I've lived here my entire life and it's difficult to compare last week's nor'easter with any hurricane.  Maybe Irene in 2011?

The girls still had school as scheduled.  I was surprised when dance was cancelled somewhat early in the day.  It was raining buckets and windy but again, we see this quite often and we aren't located on the coast.  I didn't realize how strong the winds were until I drove to pick the girls up from school.  Tree branches and debris littered the roadways and the wind was intense.  As I sat in the parking lot waiting for dismissal, I could not believe how the wind was pushing the van around.  There are two main exits the kids use when they are released at the end of the day.  One of them had to be locked off because part of the building had blown off and they were afraid kids were going to be hit with falling debris.  My biggest fear driving home was a tree falling on the van.

We live in a typical suburb for this region with just under 25,000 residents.  On Friday, over 900 emergency calls were placed just in our town.  These are calls to 911 and don't include calls made to the non-emergency line.  200 of those calls came in during one hour alone in the afternoon.  The wind caused so many trees to fall over and, as you can imagine, several of these fallen trees took down power lines or blocked roadways.  I was following local pages on FB so as to warn Rich which streets were blocked off.  Someone posted how there was an electrical fire next to their house and they had been waiting for 30 minutes for the Fire Dept. to show up.  Emergency personnel simply could not keep up with all the calls.

There were power outages all over the place but ours only flickered a few times and never went out.  Many people had to wait three days for their electricity to be restored.  Rich stopped for pizza on the way home and as he was waiting, their power went out.  His order was the next one called.  We got lucky.

On Saturday, we learned that there had been a power surge at the school, causing some damage and potentially affecting school on Monday.  The issue was resolved over the weekend and our school schedule was not impacted.  Several nearby communities canceled school on Monday because so many were still without power.  

As expected, there was massive flooding along the coast and on Cape Cod.  I followed the flooding near our cottage as best as possible over the internet.  The cottage is on the ocean side and those nearby beaches don't flood.  For the cottage, we're more concerned with the pines on our lot and surrounding properties.   There was serious erosion as you move up the Cape to the bigger National Seashore beaches.

Another storm hit us last night.  This was mainly a rain turning to snow event for us.  Others, again, were not so lucky.  March is never an easy month in New England.