Irene

I am sitting here looking out the window at hurricane Irene. We are on vacation in Westport, Massachusetts. Depending which weather website you look at, we are due for either "tropical storm conditions" or "hurricane conditions" here today. I would guess that we have now is called the former. One site says that the wind speed is predicted to get up to 70 mph about 5 hours from now, and that is predicted to be about 25 mph now. I can't believe it isn't a lot more than 25 now, but what do I know? Incidentally, the sites all give 0 mph as the current local wind speed, but it's clear that that's because an instrument is broken somewhere, probably at the local airport in New Bedford.

Was it silly to stay here? The questions most on my mind are

(1) How high will the water rise today? We are protected from ocean waves, but the muddy little cove of the beloved tidal river that charmingly comes right up to our yard/lawn/garden is expected to rise, with the rest of the river, several feet higher than usual at tonight's high tide. It is extremely unlikely that it will rise as far as the ground floor of the house, but in the morning we will surely be picking up mounds of seaweed from the grass.

(2) Will these windows hold up? It seems very unlikely that any large objects will come flying at the house, but is there a chance that the wind itself will smash the two large windows? I kind of wish we had done what many people do and cover them with plywood. We told ourselves that the dense stand of juniper woods just south of us would screen the house from the worst of the wind, but it turns out that the wind is coming from the SE and is likely to continue that way.

(3) Will the power go out?