Western part of PR post Irene?

I don't know how things are in the Rincon area but I can tell you how things are in the mountains of Eastern PR.

We're still on generator power, the water came back this morning and phone/DSL (also cell phone) service is working on and off.
I just hope it won't take as long as after Jeanne in 2005 to get electricity back (more than a month).

Although Irene went straight over our heads there's not a lot of visible damage. O.K. many trees down and obviously there's damage to the power grid. The latter is no surprise. Even with normal weather it only takes a little wind and/or rain to cause a blackout.

We had lots and lots of rain - 20 inches in a couple of days. Today was the first day with some dry spells.

Rincon didn't get battered. They did lose power and water for a couple of days. They also lose power every Wednesday for some reason. Here in Moca we managed to avoid most of it. It was projected to go right over us at 2am but took a sudden turn northward and essentially missed us. We didn't even lose power. I slept through it. But the east got their butts kicked a bit when it came in.

Second try for this reply......  Thanks to both of you for your quick replies!

Gary, sounds like you folk did get hit pretty bad and I hope that you get your power back soon. Living in the mountains has it's good and bad points.  Twenty inches of rain!  How did the lowlands and sea level fare with the torrents coming off the mountains?  I know when we were in Arecibo City there was a rain storm that dropped about 4 inches, maybe more, up in the mountains and parts of roads in Arecibo were flooded with water about 1/3rd up the car doors.... yet people kept driving through it and sort of floating down the roads as they headed home to areas nearer the beach.  The police were at the side of the road with blue lights flashing and search and rescue were there ready to jump in if necessary!  Obviously this is more or less a normal part of PR life - similar to a bad snow storm stateside.

Gregg, glad to hear that you are in Moca - lovely little town!  As for Rincon and the power outages - we lost power quite a bit while we were there.  We were told that they are trying to upgrade the electrical grid, at least up in the mountains south of the city, and they would have to turn off the power so that they could upgrade it.  We usually got our power back by around 7pm.  It just became part of living there.

Again, thanks for letting me know what's happened.  Nobody tells us anything up here stateside!

It's going to be an interesting weekend on the US east coast as we see what Irene will do stateside.  You all take care in beautiful PR, and let's hope that Irene is the last big storm to hit the island this year......(wishful thinking!.....) Take care!

Paet wrote:

Gary, sounds like you folk did get hit pretty bad and I hope that you get your power back soon. Living in the mountains has it's good and bad points.  Twenty inches of rain!  How did the lowlands and sea level fare with the torrents coming off the mountains?

We've been without power for a week (minus 2 hours) - not too bad

The rain didn't bother us a lot up here; most of it goes down the mountain anyway.
In the valley there were lots of areas flooded, rivers outside their banks, roads closed, the works.
Things are back to normal in the mean time.
The next hurricane (Katia) won't visit PR so that looks good as well. Three more weeks and the statistical peak of the season will be over. We hardly get storms in October and November here on La Isla Del Encanto.

I hope Irene didn't do harm in your neck of the woods.

We lucked out with Irene - we live in NE Ohio.  We did get about 2" of rain but living about a mile from Lake Erie on a bluff that is probably 60 feet above the lake we seldom get floods, just wet basements.... of course when you have a 121 year old house you expect that.

See Katia made a full circle and is back in the mid Atlantic as a cat 3 or 4.  Tough old girl!

We will be getting rain from Lee this week but again we are on the farthest edge and probably no big deal.

Right now I'm freezing - still used to the PR weather! -- it's in the low 60's F during the day..... but fall is coming soon and then that nasty "W" word ....winter.  Hope my blood rethickens by mid November.

I have a feeling that PR weather forcasters, except for hurricane season, just die from boredom.  Keep remembering that guy with the parrot puppet on his are!  Muy loco!

Take care!

We're looking east to Maria, a tropical storm that will be in our area by the weekend.