Irene means "peaceful"

1:24 p.m. Saturday, August 27

The wind is howling. Trees are down, blocking major roads in scattered areas. The lights are flickering at my house. And power is lost in the westernmost neighborhood in the Fan District.

And the worst is yet to come.

Irene means peace in ancient Greek, but Hurricane Irene is anything but.

I just got back from a foray out into the storm. I had a haircut appointment at 11:30, and I stopped at the grocery store, the drugstore and the office supply store on my way home.

Most of the streets I traveled were littered with small branches and green leaves, with an occasional trash can blowing and bouncing along. Traffic lights were swaying in the wind. Major gusts rocked my car. The tops of trees were whipping back and forth. Rain was pounding down here on the north side of Richmond and is ponding deep in my back yard.

And the last forecast I heard said Richmond would bear the brunt of tropical-storm winds tonight between 6 p.m. and midnight.

Cassie, never the bravest of cats, is hidden deep under the guest-room bed.

I'm happy to be indoors and back at home.

When I left the house this morning, rain was falling, there were occasional minor gusts of wind, and the streets were clear.

But as I headed home, traffic lights were out all along Robinson Street from Cary Street to Monument Avenue. A major tree had fallen across Grove Avenue, blocking all westbound traffic just east of Malvern Avenue, and a large limb had narrowed Malvern between Monument and Broad Street from four lanes to three.

I doubt that Irene will be the worst storm I've weathered in Richmond. There was Hurricane Agnes that knocked out power and the city's water supply in 1972. Agnes was quickly followed by the No-Name Storm that again flooded Shockoe Bottom. I remember watching dead cows from farms to the west floating down the James River under the Huguenot Bridge. Most recently, Isabel in 2003 felled thousands of trees and knocked out power to great swaths of the city -- I had no power at home for two weeks -- and there were several other hurricanes along the way.

The first hurricane I remember was a big one, Hazel, that hit Richmond in 1954 when I was 12. I remember my mother telling me to stay away from the windows. But I watched anyway as trash cans and lawn furniture sailed horizontally past our house. Hazel was a Category 4 storm that made landfall in the Carolinas and killed almost a hundred people in the U.S. before it petered out in Canada.

Irene will probably not do that much damage to Richmond, but we won't really know until after midnight when the storm passes further north.

Meanwhile, it's time to bring out the flashlights, the candles and the kerosene lamps and hunker down.

2:20 p.m. update

Seventy thousand people in Central Virginia are without power now. Winds downtown are gusting to 45 mph. A 4-inch diameter limb has cracked on the large maple in my back yard. It's dangling down blocking the door to the shed deep in the rear of the yard. So far the power is holding, as is Internet and TV service. Heavy rain is blowing horizontally on Northside. The howling of the wind is really disconcerting.


3:25 p.m. update

Earlier, the storm came in waves as bands of moisture far from the center raced through Richmond. Now the winds and rain are sustained as the eye moves up past Virginia Beach. The clouds are speeding across the sky like a bullet train. Wind gusts are up to 55 m.p.h.

Cassie has emerged from under the bed, but she's doing a lot of pacing as the winds continue to howl. She'll lie down in one place for only a few minutes before moving elsewhere. When the winds blow hard, her eyes widen.

The wind has blown the screen out of one of my back windows. I heard a thump as it fell down the exterior basement stairwell. It's below ground level, so I think I'll avoid getting soaking wet and let it stay right where it is. It's unlikely to become a flying object.

Right now we're about 90 minutes away from the beginning of the worst of it. Sustained winds are forecast to reach up to 60 m.p.h for several hours.

It might be time for a nap. It looks like it will be a long night tonight. More later if the power holds.

5:20 p.m. update

Took a brief nap. The wind was howling too much to really sleep, though. I woke up when the power went off, but by the time I was fully awake, the power came back on. TV is now showing trees down all over Richmond, especially to the east, closer to the eye of the storm. More than 100,000 customers have lost power in the Richmond area now. Three limbs from the big maple tree in the back yard have now fallen, snapped off at the main trunk. I just checked the basement, which usually -- like so many others on Northside -- gets wet whenever it rains. It's dry as a bone. That's primarily because the summer has been so dry and the ground is soaking up the rain like a sponge. That's good news: Since the ground is not yet saturated, trees are less likely to topple. But that might change within the next 6 hours, during which the storm is forecast to do its worst in Richmond.

Cassie has now decided its just too much to take and is hunkered down under the big desk in the living room. That's where she usually hides from loud noises during fireworks at The Diamond or during thunderstorms.

My friend John down on Longboat Key in Florida asked me via e-mail this afternoon if this was my "first time at the rodeo." Not hardly. But it's my first hurricane since I started my blog a few years ago.

6:14 p.m. update

Latest stats: Two thirds of the Richmond metro area is without power -- that's more than 250,000 homes and businesses. The strongest wind gusts are about 65 m.p.h. Rain so far totals almost 4 inches since noon, with about four more hours of heavy downpours to go.

I still have power, although it went out briefly a few minutes ago and then came right back on. I suspect I'll lose power later this evening. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and my flashlights, candles and kerosene lamps at the ready.

6:26 p.m. update

The howling wind sounds just like the storm in the beginning of the 1934 film version of "Great Expectations." If you've seen this black-and-white adaptation, you know exactly what I mean.

WTVR TV is starting to report power outages in the metro area in terms of how many people still have power. It's a far smaller number.

8:25 p.m. update

Surprisingly, I still have power. Most of the city doesn't. And this might be wishful thinking, but the wind seems to have died down a bit. We might be in a lull, but at least the annoying howling has stopped for the moment.

So who has company during a hurricane? I did. My friend Walter, whose house in Connecticut is in line for a direct hit from Irene. set out for Richmond this morning. He arrived at my front door about 90 minutes ago. He brought news with him: A large tree limb has fallen and blocked my street about a block east of me. I haven't been outside to check the neighborhood yet. I'll do that tomorrow morning.

The original plan was for Walter and I and a mutual friend to meet tonight, have dinner, and catch up on what's been going on with each of us. But Walter was, quite naturally, delayed by the storm, our friend had to work because of the storm and a shortage of personnel where she works, and very few restaurants are open here tonight because of the power outages. Our friend has no power at her house, so Walter is picking up some food and headed to see her. I elected to stay home since I have no desire to drive in this mess. Well get together for lunch tomorrow.

We're still having major wind gusts occasionally, and the local police are still warning people not to drive unless there's an emergency.

I might be jinxing myself by saying this,: I am amazed that I am one of the 25 percent of Richmonders who never lost power for more than a few minutes. But . . . the night is young, and there are still a few hours to go before the worst of the storm passes. I might still need the flashlights before this is all over.

8:48 p.m. update

Walter just called to tell me that he had to drive at least 7 miles toward our friend's house before he found places with power. None of them were restaurants. He finally found a convenience store that was open, so he stopped and picked up junk food to take to our friend's for dinner. They'll be dining on Snickers bars, bottled water and potato chips, along with whatever she might have in the refrigerator. She has no power tonight, and it'll probably be tomorrow morning before Dominion Power even starts to work on repairs.

10:31 p.m. update

Unlike the majority of Richmond, I still have power. More than a third of a million customers in the metro area are sitting in the dark tonight.

The worst of Hurricane Irene seems to have moved up the coast. We're still having momentary gusts that are quite capable of uprooting trees -- especially given that the ground is now so saturated -- but my stately maple in the back yard still stands (minus a few major branches) and my 70-year-old willow oak in the front yard survives undamaged.

It will be some time before Richmond recovers from Irene. One of Richmond's TV weathermen presented a complicated meteorological explanation of why the winds were so much stronger than expected in Richmond, in some cases as strong as the winds closer to the eye as it passed Virginia Beach. The reason has to do with areas of pressure difference between the eye and the eye-wall , some 100 miles away from us, and the pressure difference between the Richmond area and areas just to our west. If I understand correctly, the difference was greater here than along the coast. I don't pretend to really understand how and why this happened, but I do know that we took our lumps from about 2 p.m. until just an hour or so ago.

If the power -- and The Power -- stays with us in my neighborhood, I'll update the blog again tomorrow morning. If not, I'll take my netbook and go in search of free wifi somewhere.

Good night, and if you live further north up the East Coast, good luck.

Sunday, August 28, 9:30 a.m.

Chainsaws and cicadas.

That's the soundtrack of Richmond on the morning following a destructive hurricane that seems to have done as much damage in Richmond as it did along the East Coast of Virginia -- 100 miles away -- which took a direct hit from Irene yesterday and last night.

I'm still in the lucky 25 percent of Central Virginia residents who have power. Depending on whether you're hearing Dominion Power forecasts or word from state emergency management officials, it'll be either a few days or a few weeks before full power is restored.

Richmond's beauty was also its downfall.

The city has more than its share of stately trees. They've been a source of pride for generations. Tall, mature trees line both sides of Monument Avenue, one of the most beautiful boulevards in the country. Trees also line both sides of the broad median strip that runs the length of the avenue.

Many of them -- trees that have towered since before I was born and that have long formed a canopy of shade along the graceful thoroughfare -- were downed by Irene. The same is true throughout Central Virginia. Felled by Irene's high winds, they crushed houses and cars and now block major and minor roadways.

In my neighborhood, where many of the trees date back to the first quarter of the last century, neighbors with chainsaws are cutting through downed trees and limbs as the clean-up begins.

And almost drowning out the roar of the chainsaws is the noise of the cicadas, providing the everlasting summer soundtrack of the South.

The sun is out. The sky is blue. Birds are singing. It's warm, but not yet hot.

The city is beginning -- but no more than beginning -- to come back to life.