Stormy Weather: Our Visit With Hurricane Irene

Once again, our end-of-summer family vacation was interrupted by the threat of a major hurricane! In 2010, it was a hurricane that caused a huge ruckus before meandering in as a lightly blowing summer breeze... I already forgot its unmemorable name... but the hysteria around it caused us to evacuate and return early to Newton. This year, when Hurricane Irene started making a nuisance in the Caribbean, we wanted nothing to do with her. It was Gemma's birthday weekend as well as the start of our one week family vacation together. We had just purchased new bikes and were ready to hit the Rail Trail on the Cape. We weren't leaving this time - not a chance.

As it turned out, Irene was less than a hurricane, but more than a gentle summer breeze. She proved to be a very strong tropical storm, almost a Cat 1 hurricane, and it was interesting to see what happens in Cotuit when the wind really starts to blow. The winds were fierce, and because our house is on the water the gusts can be pretty nasty. We lost power quickly. The winds blew hard (VERY noisy) for almost 24 hours. The storm surge was crazy! We think the water only came up 5 feet or so above normal high tide - we can only imagine what things looked like after Hurricane Bob when there was a 14-15 foot surge. That's the town dock underwater - during the storm all of the floating docks attached to the main dock broke free and were swept away.


The storm hit on Sunday, August 28, and since we were locked inside all day with no electricity, we had a nice birthday celebration for Gemma. We improvised with food - cooking a bit on the grill in back - and opening her presents a day early. She and Edie were happy as could be to have a day inside.



Nighttime in the dark - not so fun. We went to bed at 8:30pm, and spent the better part of the night listening to the howling winds. We woke up to a beautiful day on Monday. It was cooler and glorious outside. Unfortunately, we soon ascertained that we would be without power for days. The nice woman in the lone utility pickup truck was not encouraging. We surveyed the damage in Cotuit, noting the sad state of several boats that came off their moorings.



Dejectedly, we set to the task of emptying our refrigerator and freezer, and packing to return, in defeat, to Newton while waiting for power to be restored. But then, following a fabulous bike ride, we were sitting at the beach at 6pm and, looking out to sea in the late afternoon sun, we got ahold of our senses and realized we couldn't leave - not with the prospect of a gorgeous week ahead. Chris called down to a resort in Chatham, got us a room for the night, and we quickly threw a few things in the car, loaded our bikes and took off. We spent two nights and two days in Chatham, swimming in the pool, bike riding, and enjoying our lovely surroundings. We ventured back to Cotuit on Thursday, and again could not bring ourselves to return to Newton. We settled in for another dark night. But National Grid, our electrical provider, smiled upon us and at 2am in the morning power was restored. And our vacation continued!!