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Hurricane Isabel was Boring.

Thursday 18 September 2003 at 11:47 pm So that was kind of boring.

Hurricane Isabel hit Falls Church, VA (yes, the false home of JAG HQ) hardest around 2-4pm this afternoon. Jen and I were wondering the beautiful leaf and twig lined streets and were witness to a tree or two falling within 100 feet of our path. That was, for the most part, all the excitement we received from Generous Isabel.

My friend Michael had some damage to his Jeep when a tree fell on it, and on our 11pm wondering in the streets we saw a limb fall off a pine tree about 30 feet in front of us. We met one of our neighbors down the street, Rob, who works for the DOJ and owns a chainsaw. Sweet, power tools! He came down to witness the carnage of the L-shaped tree that surrounds (and I like to think protects) our power, cable and telephone lines. The L-shaped tree gave a limb to the cause, almost destroying our neighbors Saab something-or-other. As we walked, we saw the night sky uncharacteristicly lit up by red, blue, green and yellow blasts of light; the theory at the moment is that power lines are shorting out and creating the colorful fireworks of the evening, probably due to the lack of any lightning.

One other abnormal occurance during the evening was a bizarre "whoomph" of power that made it through the system in the neighborhood. I still don't know theoriginating device which caused the sound, but it was interesting to hear it, not only inside our house but as we walked the 'hood as well.

Other than that, and a whole bunch of kindling that now litters my yard, Isabel was kind of boring. Sure, I got two days off out of it, but it just didn't seem worth it for the carnage that didn't happen. Maybe if it had been worse, I'd be pissed off that it got so bad, and that I had to deal with our insurance provider who, it would have turned out, clearly wrote hurricane damage out of our contract with them and left us dangling with hundreds of thousands of dollars in repairs.

Yeah, Hurricane Isabel was boring. At least at my address.