We Survived Irene, the Whore

The best way to compose this post is to copy from my captain's log for the last few days:

Saturday, August 27th: The first bands of rain are due late tonight. Winds are not expected to pipe up until early Sunday morning. The canal is scheduled to close tomorrow at noon. The big unknown is when it will reopen... Currently, at 1800, the barometer is at 1028 milibars. That's pretty normal. Curious to see how far it drops when Irene shows up.

Sunday, August 28th: Rain started at 0300. Pretty significant amounts. Winds are coming from the NE and are predicted to shift to the NW as Irene moves through. This is good because we will be very sheltered by cliffs along the river bank. Our preparations have been very good as the boat has ridden very well and we have stayed high and dry. About 1700, the commodore of the club came by and advised that we should abandon ship and take shelter in the clubhouse because the water was rising at an uprecendented rate and that very soon we would not be able to get to land because the ramps going to the docks would be underwater. The docks float, but the ramps don't. He was right. We went to the clubhouse which was at the highest point of land at the marina. Our friends from NC joined us along with about a half dozen other club members. The rain stopped at around 2000 although the winds were still quite stout at 40 mph. The real concern was how high would the river rise. By the way, the barometer dropped to 1001 milibars - wow.

Monday, August 29th:  At 0200, the phone at the clubhouse rang and I answered it. The caller advised that several locks to the west had failed and that the Gilboa Dam was in danger of breaching. If that happened, the torrent of water that would come down on us would raise the river 24' above its norm, the whole yacht club would be washed away along with our boat, and we would be like the people from the 9th ward in New Orleans sitting on the roof of the clubhouse with signs reading "Help Me"! Fortunately, the dam held and we would be okay, but... By daybreak we could see the story that the national media whiffed on. The Mohawk River was rising to crest at 16' above its norm, running at 25-35 mph sweeping away everything in its path. At about 1000, our friends from NC saw their tug, Digby break loose from where it was chained to a bridge pier and bounce off a couple of boats. It would have been lost except that a single dock line held them in place just out of the current. But then the docks started to twist and groan and buckle. The header which runs parallel to the shore, is about 1000' long and has about 50 fingers jutting off of it into the river, holding about 100 boats. In a little over a minute, about 500' of the header was destroyed. Miraculously, all the boats remained attached to the carnage. None were lost. We spent the entire day staring at the mayhem, praying that the docks would hang together and not tumble like dominoes into the river to be swept over the dam, 5 miles downstream, with all of our boats attached. And we watched the water continue to rise. It was supposed to crest at 1500. Then the electrical boxes began to explode, one after the other, and the wind picked up to about 15 mph from the west - the absolutely wrong direction. Finally, around 1700, the winds subsided, the river began to recede ever so slightly, and the worst had passed. We had survived Irene. Tomorrow, we will start to pick up the pieces.

Tuesday, August 30th:  What a sight. The river level had dropped about 14' leaving a sea of mud where just yesterday a sea had been. Snow plows were brought into clear the 3' of mud so the crews could get to the docks and begin the work of securing boats and extracting broken docks from the river. The damage to the docks was worse than we had initially imagined. Alize was completely unscathed, just covered with leaves, mud and other debris. We are on our boat for the first time in two days. Marg cooked a great meal and I feel I can finally relax. Our next challenge will be getting down stream. Lock 7, the next lock on the river, is  closed indefinitely. No one can tell me what that means. There are 20 boats in the flight above Waterford. Waterford docks were destroyed. The Troy Boat Club was completely destroyed, 26 boats sunk or totally damaged. Albany Boat Club was under water. I look at our situation and can't help but think, it could have been worse.