Hurricane Irene

The past week in Williamsburg has been quite exciting. First a 5.8 earthquake rocked the area and then a hurricane! Before any west coasters begin laughing at our "earthquake", I do have it from several west coasters that this was still the longest and the strongest earthquake they've felt. Evie and I were sitting outside in CW and I could feel and SEE the earth moving back and forth and up and down. It was quite the weird feeling! Thankfully there was no earthquake damage in Williamsburg.
The hurricane was the much more dramatic of the two. While the storm did slow down a bit before hitting us, there was still flooding and many trees down. Most, if not all of Williamsburg lost power and many people are still without it. Ours only went out from 8:30 pm Saturday to 11:00 am Sunday. It rained (mostly horizontal downpours) for almost 24 hours. We got over 9 inches of rain on Saturday! The wind at its peak was 78 mph sustained. I know 78 mph isn't as high as they originally thought it would be, but still, when you hear it whipping through the trees and around your house, it's pretty intense! Definitely the worst wind we've ever heard! Our apartment is up on a hill without many trees, so while we could hear trees snapping around us, none hit our building.
Many people have asked what Evie thought of the storm... she LOVED it. She was super stir-crazy all day and definitely missing her Aunt Emily and Aunt Caroline. The only thing that she really wanted to do was sit in front of the door and watch the rain and wind! Every time a gust would come up she would get we, but she loved it! It was actually pretty funny.
Can you see her wet face and hair?? :p

Sunday morning we went for a walk to survey the damage. This huge tree is right outside our apartment complex. The picture doesn't really show how big it is. Not sure if you can see it but there is a little house under that tree. :(
Colonial Williamsburg had a lot of trees and branches down, but only one house was really hit. They had lots of crews out working when we got there. Evie loved watching the man with the chain saw. :)
It may just look like Nathan is standing in front of bushes in the below picture, but it's really a massive tree. You can sort of get the feel for the size with how small Nathan and Evelyn are. I couldn't get the whole tree to fit in the picture!
I'm sad because this was one of my favorite trees!!

All the buildings in CW were shuttered up and all the signs and lanterns were tied town. You can sort of see the sign in the picture below.

Trying to get the tree off the house...

This tree is VERY significant as it is the tree I sat under during the earthquake. It split into thirds during the hurricane with only the middle part still standing. :(


Evie, oblivious of the destruction around her, was simply enjoying the beautiful day and NOT being cooped up inside any more!

We saw several of the horses out. They seemed a bit skittish but ok. I guess they leave them all in the pastures during storms because it is safer for them there with falling trees than in the barn.
We've been keeping an eye on Nathan's parents' house as well. Their house is fine but one neighbor had a tree fall on them and another had two massive trees fall. Thankfully they fell into the woods though and NOT on their house!
It seems that there are two extremes... either everything is fine for people or they had very dramatic experiences. We're grateful that everything is fine here at the Mortiers.