Hurricane Irene

Queens Creek

Once upon a Friday, the view out of Chesapeake Bay Woman's back window, which faces Queens Creek, looked ominous but tranquil.

With the threat of a Category 2 hurricane approaching, the Chesapeake Bay Family decided to take a nap board up in preparation, even though what CBW really wanted to do was run away to Bora Bora take a nap.

So 46-year-old CBW and her 70-year-old father hauled plywood out of the basement, staggered up steps, teetered on ladders, banged heads against overhangs, struggled to see where screws needed to go, until, after much ado and more than a few foul words, they managed to seal up the sliding glass doors facing the creek.

Casa de CBW.

CBW, always a stickler for details  and on the cutting edge of obsolescence current events, was shocked to see that winds and rain had already started when she awoke Saturday morning. (She was under the misguided impression that the storm wasn't going to hit until later in the day.)

Do not adjust your dials.  Pardon these blurry shots, but I took these from inside the house, through dirty rain stained windows and screens.

As you can see, the tide was coming up into the yard, and white caps danced along the shore.

This is the same view only through CBW's tears because her power had gone out and she knew she'd be without internet for days on end very rainy windows. The wind and rain were fierce; however, we're accustomed to storms, and this wasn't much worse than your average nor'easter or tropical storm.

Of course that's just my uneducated opinion, and of course I didn't suffer major damage, so that's easy for me to say.  There were deaths associated with this storm, although none were in Mathews.

Every now and then, CBW would glance through the one sliding door that was not boarded up to make sure no trees had crashed down on her parents' house next door.

Luckily none did, but you can see how even here, very early in the storm, Mother Nature was showing off her  finest pruning skills on the pine trees.

CB Parents' House.  Clumps of pine needles all over the ground.

The next day?

It was almost as if nothing happened.

(Almost.)

This (below) was taken early in the day on Saturday from a window looking out towards the boat house and Miller's Cove.

Here the tide is already over the dock.

Later on, the tide came over the dock and seemed to swallow the boat house.

You can't really see it here, but the tide is waaaay up and overtaking the boat house.

The next day?

Almost as if nothing happened.

(Almost.)

Almost...

A very large pine branch came down onto the dock, nearly hitting the boat house.

Locust branch down during the storm.

And, I lost a major part of the locust tree.

Locust tree the day after.

Still, we fared very well, all things considering. There was no structural damage except minor issues with the dock which was dilapidated to begin with.

I'll share more photos from the storm later this week, when I have more time and more patience. These took over an hour to load because both my laptop and my desktop are old enough to draw Social Security checks, and they've decided to act ornery up at the same time.

In the mean time, I've received several inquiries from property owners (from as far away as Indonesia and France!) regarding the state of affairs here in the county.  For the most part we fared far better than expected.

If anyone reading has particular concerns, I am more than happy to travel to your property and take photos for you if you wish. Just e-mail me at ChesapeakeBayWoman@gmail.com. I enjoy hearing from you and am happy to help in any way.

Thanks for your patience as I continue my lifelong struggle with technology and things breaking down on me. Hopefully we'll have more pictures later in the week, and if we don't that just means both the laptop and the PC are resting comfortably in the bottom of Queens Creek after a run-in with Hurricane CBW.

The End.