A Story

Scituate Lighthouse

This is our story of Hurricane Irene.
It happened that a dear friend of ours had invited us to her son's wedding.  It was the 27th of August which worked out perfectly for me.   I got home from my wonderful vacation to Scituate on Thursday, washed my clothes and did housework on Friday, then Saturday we headed over to the White Mountains of New Hampshire for the wedding.  Originally we had thought to have a weekend getaway by going over to the coast after the wedding, then taking a leisurely trip home on Sunday.  Annie was staying at the house for us to watch over all the critters so we weren't going to be in a hurry to go home.
However, Hurricane Irene changed all that.

Ty and Alyssa

Knowing that the storm was coming up the coastline we decided to go right back to Vermont early on Sunday.  The wedding itself was very nice with the weather being warm with just a few clouds.  But when we woke up Sunday at 6, it had already been raining for a while.  We went to 7:30 Mass at the little church where Ty got married and headed west immediately.  Stopped for breakfast in Littleton then drove out into the storm.  At that point, and for most of the trip, it was more rain than wind to deal with.
Jeff decided that if the wind was going to come up the Connecticut valley that it made more sense for us to drive over to the middle of the state before we headed south.  If we went through the mountains he figured the winds would be less.
We didn't factor in Torrential Rains.
As we got closer to home the accumulation of water was becoming scarier and scarier.  There were one or two instances of hydroplaning which were slightly unnerving.  The rivers were absolutely raging--even the brooks were wild.  Still, we just kept on driving as it only seemed to us like a fierce rainstorm.  We arrived home safely at about 12:30.

The raging Poultney River

Only to be met by a slightly wild daughter who had been a little frantic not knowing where her folks were. You see, we don't have a cell phone.  And she had been watching the news. Evidently almost as soon as we had crossed many of the roads they had been washed away.  Literally.  Poor Annie viewing the TV coverage of this flooding had no way of knowing we were sailing in ahead of the destruction.  But angels were surrounding us.
Now I'm watching Vermonters digging out, cleaning, coping and making me proud to be a resident of this valiant state.