And then this happened...
You may recall that I concluded the last entry by saying "we are very thankful considering the mess in the world outside". The following day Judy was in quite a serious car crash! Poor Judy Hurricane Supplies - Before the storm Local Pictures Flooding everywhere - reporting from the Weather Channel Pictures from the local railroad Summary of the damage from the paper
For the record, it wasn't in any way her fault. But it was a head on collision on her side of the road between her little car she drives for work and a large truck whose driver had become distracted. It was quite a bang and fortunately the airbags and seatbelt probably saved her life.
That said her right leg was quite badly trashed and she had a compound lower leg fracture and several other broken bones. Fortunately we have a very good teaching hospital near here and in a nine hour operation they fixed her up, so hopefully by early next year she'll be back on her feet again.
As if that wasn't enough Hurricane Irene decided to pay us a visit. In the town where we live the damage was limited to branches down and power poles snapped in two. Power was out for a week in some streets
Our various friends around the area didn't do so well, they had their basements flooded, large trees coming down on their property destroying outbuildings and possibly the most horrific story someone we know had their car (along with six others) washed away down river and had to be evacuated by helicopter as the roads had been completely washed out.
The railroad was completely closed during the storm and reopened only a couple of days later, except for one line that won't reopen for months!
I don't usually use other people's pictures, but I wanted to show the damage further afield so these are from MTA Metro-North and the local paper. Although Irene was a tropical storm by the time it came through our town, it rained a couple of inches an hour on and off for twenty hours straight. Water rose in places at least 17 feet and the force washed away everything in its path. Let's hope this stays a once in fifty year occurrence!
Better News next month I hope....
