Cleaning Up After Irene; Transportation Challenges in Vermont

The enormity of the flooding is now clear; the long arduous task of cleaning up the mess has started.

Irene created the worst flooding Vermont has seen in over eighty years - say anything in Vermont about how Irene was overblown and you'll wake up in the ER.

One under-reported item I wanted to call attention to was the damage to Vermont's rail network. The rail system is starting to work again, but took a major pounding (just as the Vermont road network did). Most notably, the New England Central Railroad and the Green Mountain Railroad (part of Vermont Rail System) are out of commission on their main lines, with numerous washouts and knocked-out bridges. For train nerds like myself, this is the story I'll be watching - will the damage be too much to justify both of their rebuildings? Flooding in New England was the doom of several rail lines in the 1930s. Hopefully, I'm way off base here.

I'm wrapping up my own following of news from waterlogged upstate New York and Vermont; but here are some places to keep tabs on how recovery efforts are going:

For Vermont:

Burlington Free Press

Rutland Herald

Vermont Public Radio (Irene-specific links here and here)

For New York:

Albany Times-Union

The Watershed Post

For Rail news:

Google News Search: "Vermont railroad Irene"

VRS and Rutland RR Yahoo! group

New England Central Railroad Yahoo! group

Irene's Soggy Finish

By Sunday night, what was left of Irene crossed into Canada, and was no longer tropical.

The intervening hours were not as kind.

The good news: Irene's wind and storm surge damage ended up being lighter than expected.

The bad news: Lighter, however - not light. Some mild coastal flooding in North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut. There was a lot of wind damage in NC, Virginia, and New Jersey, and extensive power outages in Virginia, Connecticut, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

The ugly news: Vermont and upstate New York got dumped on; extensive flooding is wreaking havoc in the Catskills and Adirondacks, and every - every - major highway in Vermont has flood damage. (And not just roads.) That part of Irene's legacy is still emerging.

Here Comes Irene

Latest forecasts put her ashore in NC this evening, then trailing her coat along the Mid-Atlantic states until reaching New York City Saturday night and New England Saturday night and Sunday morning.

The good news: the storm is weakening.

The bad news: her forecast path will still cause significant coastal flooding and put high winds and a lot of rain on top of a lot of people, just because of the densely populated region the hurricane will be hitting. New York City is evacuating hundreds of thousands, and just the transportation disruptions will last well into next week.

Going to be a long weekend.

Down By The Water

"Down By The Water," The Decemberists.

Not Reassuring - Hurricane Irene's High Flooding Potential

UPDATE: 


And it's official: hurricane warning for North Carolina; hurricane watch issued for almost the entire Chesapeake Bay and extending on up the Delaware and New Jersey coasts to New York City.


ORIGINAL POST:
The National Weather Service's Hydrometeorological Prediction Center (basically, the group that predicts flooding) put out this statement this afternoon, that reads in part:

PRELIMINARY EXTENDED FORECAST DISCUSSION
NWS HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD
948 AM EDT THU AUG 25 2011


VALID 12Z MON AUG 29 2011 - 12Z THU SEP 01 2011


...MAJOR HURRICANE IRENE TO STRONGLY AFFECT THE EAST COAST FROM NC
INTO THE NEW ENGLAND THIS WEEKEND...


THE LATEST NUMERICAL GUIDANCE CONTINUES TO ADJUST WESTWARD AS HAS
THE LAST SEVERAL NHC TRACK FORECASTS WHICH NOW HAVE EYE OF IRENE
COMING THRU THE NORTH CAROLINA OUTER BANKS LATE SATURDAY BEFORE
GRAZING THE DELMARVA AND NEW JERSEY THEN MOVING INTO THE NORTHEAST
ON SUNDAY. THIS POTENTIALLY COULD BE EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE WITH
MASSIVE DISRUPTIONS TO SOCIETY AND COMMERCE ALONG ITS ENTIRE TRACK
WITH VERY HIGH WINDS/STORM SURGE/OCEAN OVERWASH/BEACH
EROSION/SOUND AND BAY SIDE COASTAL FLOODING AND EXTREME TIDE
POTENTIAL. WIDESPREAD HEAVY RAINS IN THE 6-10 INCH RANGE WILL BE
COMMON WITH GREATLY INCREASED INLAND FLOOD POTENTIAL. REFER TO THE
NHC FOR THE LATEST FORECAST OF IRENE ALONG WITH LOCAL NWS
WARNINGS/STATEMENTS AND ADVISORIES FROM NC INTO NEW ENGLAND.

The phrase "COULD BE EXTREMELY DESTRUCTIVE WITH MASSIVE DISRUPTIONS TO SOCIETY AND COMMERCE ALONG ITS ENTIRE TRACK" does not inspire calm.

In short, Hurricane Irene should not be taken lightly.

The Weather Nerd has the latest here and at his Twitter feed.