Thanks Irene!

Around 9:45 a.m. Battery Park City, all pictures taken near or at the World Financial Center (North Cove)

Fortunately, Irene's mood switched for the better and she moved East from New York City.  Therefore, the dire predictions were not met.   Seems some people in selected areas had some flooding but no loss of life was reported in the Northeast so far.  That would be tragic and those tragedies have occurred in other cities and countries during a hurricane!

Mayor Bloomberg bet on the side of caution - as he should in order to prevent loss of lives - and attempted to evacuate 370,000 people in the low-lying areas.  Most people heeded this warning.  I didn't know that a mandatory evacuation was a law so I followed my intuition and stayed.  He said people would not be forced out so I took that to mean that there was a level of choice involved.  I found out late last night that it represented breaking the law when it was too late.  I would never knowingly break the law.

Somehow I knew that I would be fine.  I sensed inside that there would not be major issues.  I was prepared for loss of electricity and water but knew that I was not going to be in any kind of danger.  I did avoid most of the news except for occasional updates to prevent getting scared without reason.  The news many times are sensational.  A friend asked that I sleep in the bathtub but because I felt so safe, I slept in my bed, like a baby.

This morning, I woke up at 6:00 a.m., checked progress with the storm, saw that it had weakened and went back to bed until 8:00 a.m.  The strongest impact of Irene was felt in New York City around 8:00 a.m.  At around 9:30 a.m. I took a walk by the river.  Everything quiet, wind strong but have felt stronger wind in this area. About two and a half feet between the height of the river and land so no danger of flooding.  Seems that at the height of the storm some flooding did occur by the debris left by the river (sad that there is so much debris in the Hudson!) but it didn't go far and it was only in a very small area.

Such a beautiful area and yet the river has garbage.  Any garbage in a river is so sad to see!

I was very worried about the boats but fortunately no damage and apparently no water in the boats. This shows the height of the water right by the boats:

After walking for about 45 minutes a New York Police van came by asking people to leave the area.  They are afraid of the unexpected and they err on the side of caution which is fine.  That's when I left.  No sense in more civil disobedience!

Felt so safe!  Enjoying the last few days in my beautiful home!