October Nor'easter
The storm started Friday morning, pummeling us with rain while the swell on the bay and ocean started picking up. I went to see Flogging Molly in downtown Norfolk and the weather was fine, but by the time I was heading home at midnight, botht the winds and rain picked back up.
When I woke in the morning, the surf in the backyard was going crazy and had eroded a considerable chunk of the dune that protects the houses along the shoreline. Here's some of the early morning shots.
So I had been planning to go to the movies but when we checked the streetside, the inner bay had tidal flooding, bringing the sea water into the yards across the street. The roads had pockets of flooding, with some cars stalled out in deeper sections...so the movie idea was a bust and I hopped a ride with my neighbors to get some beer and groceries to kind of hunker down at the house for the day. When we returned from the store, a cop had the road blocked.
"Hey," I said. "We live like two blocks down."
"Sorry the road is closed. It's impassable," he said.
"We just came throught there. It's two blocks. We live there. I mean look at the truck we're in?" I said, motioning towards my neighbors big old lifted Dodge.
"Sorry. My boss says the road is closed."
Shit. We had to park in the gas station parking lot and walk the two and a half blocks to our house. If I'd known we'd be hiking through water I'd have bought less groceries. We made it home and just dug in to the day, stranded on the peninsula of Willoughby. The wind was crisp and the rains were occassional through the day, so all in all, it wasn't a bad place to be stranded.
It was a truly Irish weekend. Bad weather from ocean and northern storms made it feel like Galway Bay in the winter. Flogging Molly played through it all on Friday and tore down the Norva. The nor'easter hit full force on Saturday morning, causing mass flooding, beach erosion, and panic in Willoughby, moreso by the local authorities, who closed the roads, than by the residents who were used to these types of storms and the expected surge in the seas.
Then Sunday morning, I went to see The Departed, the new Scorsese Irish Mafia flick. I had seen Infernal Affairs, the Chinese film it was based on, so I knew the storyline going in...but it still blew me away...
not gonna say anything...just go see it...but expect for three hours in the theatre...I can't wait to have a copy at home.
Ok...so it's Monday...got a day off...gonna relax...some more...
hope everyone had a great morning...from county norfolk on the dark shores of willoughby...mahalo...
The Day After...
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Last changes to this site were:
(the surf going crazy)
looking west, you can see the erosion...the once sloping dune now a jagged drop down...
looking east...nothing but whitewash...
standing in what's left of the backyard...
my neighbor Paul and his daughter Christy
OV's finest hanging in the driveway with the Cadillac
chilling...on a rainy saturday aftrenoon
and then the beach rebuilds itself...
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