Good night Irene

I hope everyone was safe and spared any kind of property/personal damage from the storm. Thank goodness it was not too bad around here.......we were lucky.....as it could have been worse. But, it's always better to prepare for the worse and hope for the best.
As I stepped out the door at 5:15 this morning to head to work, I was immediately aware of the "feeling" of the air. It was very tropical, and it was just a little breezy. But the air was very saturated and very humid. We were hit with the outer bands throughout the night, but at this hour, the center of the storm was still south of New York.
 I took my camera with me out to the cafeteria when I took my lunch break around 12:45, as the winds were really strong........."just in case anything exciting happens" were the words I said. Well, we were sitting at our table, when suddenly there was a loud crash. We all jumped up and ran to the window and saw that part of the brick exterior wall of our building was blown off. The hospital is undergoing a massive construction project, so I am sure this wall was weakened from all of the recent work.

Day 159/Year 2

The cafeteria is on the second floor. What you see is a first floor overhang, and then some of the fallen bricks. Luckily, nobody was out there at the time. I was able to leave work at my scheduled time of 2:00. The rain had stopped, and it was very windy. I saw a few tree limbs down, and of course lots of leaves and some smaller twigs were everywhere, but all in all, we were spared of any big damage in my neck of the woods. As I turned onto my street, this is my next door neighbors house, and the fence that separates our yard from his.

Again, nothing serious, thank God. I wanted to take a drive to the beach so that I could take some photos, but knew I'd be safer at home, so home is where I stayed.

There's no place like home!