Tropical storm Isaiah

Isaiah

Yesterday tropical storm Isaiah impacted the eastern seaboard of the United States. It was a very fast moving storm, in fact it was clocked at 33 mph ground speed with wind gusts between 40 to almost 60 mph.

The condo complex where I live in Central New Jersey suffered minor damage. The only way in and out of the complex was closed down due to fallen trees across the roadway. When I went out during the storm to walk my dog, in the early afternoon, it was very windy with drizzle falling.

Leaves and large and small tree branches littered the roadways as if they were part of a very large blanket. In places tree limbs had come down in parking lots, some on cars. As we walked further I observed that people in their vehicles were trying to go down the outward bound lane of the main road towards route 1 and were turning back. They ended up using the fire access roads going the wrong way, they are single lane narrow roads one way only, to get past the blockages caused by downed trees/tree limbs.

When I walked down the main roadway towards the way out, I saw a tree had fallen down upon a car’s hood and further extended across the road. At the intersection of the road that I live on I noticed that a tree at the edge of the parking lot for one of the buildings had broken at it’s base and had fallen so that it blocked the road. Throughout the complex I saw large and small branches scattered on the grounds. No area was spared from the ferocity of Isaiah winds.

As the afternoon wore on the wind gusts picked up and it became cloudy with some more rain. Then the sun started to peek out from behind the clouds from time to time. Later the winds started to abate, but looking up at the clouds you could see them still rapidly moving across the sky at a pace far above what one would normally observe.

As nightfall made it’s appearance I noticed the homes in the development behind my condo there were no lights on and I heard the sound of at least one gas generator running. But soon after sunset I saw that the lights had appeared both in the homes and the street lights had turned on. I too had experienced a short period near noontime of a power outage, it lasted only a few minutes and then shortly following that there was a short brownout. We in our condos were fortunate while those in their expensive luxury homes were not.

I heard on the radio and saw on the internet that route 1 was closed very close by and the traffic light for my complex’s road with route 1 was not working. Also the township reported that many homes were without electricity and a number of roads were closed due to trees having fallen across roadways.

Hopefully those of you who were or still are in the path of Isaiah are safe and sound.

That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike

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