Goodbye Irene!

NASA Photo shows just how massive Hurricane Irene was

While we in the Northeast hunkered down and battened down Saturday into Sunday waiting for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, many thought back to similar storms in the past. The massive rains of Hurricane Floyd in 1999 are still in the back of many minds. Even more recently, the "100-year floods" of June 2006 bring back some very bad memories of those who were swamped and took weeks and months to recover from. I remember my first hurricane after relocating from California - Hurricane Gloria in 1985. And I was on the air at a radio station in Osterville, MA on the southern Cape Cod coast with a front row seat. And had to drive through the winds and lashing rains to get there! So I have an appreciation for what a storm like Hurricane Irene can potentially do.

While the issues in my immediate area from Irene were far less horrific than were first thought, I bristle when I hear people make comments like, "Irene was a bust!" or "The hype was as overblown as a one inch snowfall". Really? Tell that to the family of the firefighter in Princeton who lost his life. Or those of the frightened young woman in Salem County, NJ who was swept away in flood waters on US-40 trying to reach the safety of her boyfriend's home, against his urgings to stay put where she was. Or the hundreds of people who are without homes or workplaces for a day or in some cases forever, like the family in Lewes, DE who saw a tornado obliterate their once-happy nest.

Yes, Irene is gone now, soaking Canada as she breathes her last gasps of our atmosphere. But with flooding on some of our major rivers not expected to subside in some cases until Tuesday afternoon, the horror lives on for some. And they deserve our consideration and help, not flippant commentary by the uninformed and insensitive.