08/26/2009 – NOAA just upgraded the latest depression in the Atlantic to Tropical Storm Danny. This storm looks like it will bother a few more people as it is forecast to brush the coasts of NC, CT, RI, MA, NH & ME this weekend before making landfall in the Canadian Mairtimes.
So Nova Scotia gets to have a replay of “last” Sunday, “this” Sunday, except instead of brushing the coast, it’s forecast to come in the Bay of Fundy which puts Truro on the “windy” side.
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08/24/2009 – We just received a lot of wind and rain but not much damage in our area.
****something we failed to check before the storm****
We didn’t check the UPS’s – 3 failed to function proper.
One took out the phone system & it had to be reprogrammed before we had phones this morning. The other 2 were non-critical systems which just prevented backups to the GIS & AutoCAD servers.
Still lots of waves at Peggy’s Cove 🙂
http://www.peggyscovewebcam.ca/live/
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08/23/2009 – Noon Sunday….
It’s here….vertical rain and all.
Looks like it will touch Halifax this afternoon (60 miles from Truro)
For those interested in seeing some wave action, below is a link to Peggy’s Cove Lighthouse just outside Halifax. Set the refresh rate for 2s. The sites been coming and going, they’ve been getting some lightening strikes so they may have power issues.
http://www.peggyscovewebcam.ca/live/
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08/21/2009 – The US & Canadian Hurricane centers just put us under a Tropical Storm Warning & Hurricane Watch so I guess we’re not going to avoid this one.
The plan is to leave the servers up while we still have power. The remote sites (water treatment plants, etc) are “on their own” unless major damage happens at one of them, they all have generators to keep the systems running but we’ll lose data if we shut down our servers at the courthouse (the municipality’s office).
Two of us are within walking distance to the office (actually, that’s my “safe place” so I may be there anyway).
They are forecasting a storm surge at high tide. We’re at the end of the Bay of Fundy with the highest tides in the world & the highest tides of the year occur tomorrow during the surge…about 3″ of rain should be down by then with another 3″ possible after (can you spell disaster?).Flooding “shouldn’t” be an issue at the office but it is for me at home…I have a walking route that can keep me on “high ground” and the other person walks “from” high ground….just much further….we’re it for the IT dept. as the Network Admin is too far out of town, she can connect remotely if we have power.
The UPS is good for about 4 hours but no A/C power backup….our current temperature is 91.3 and a “feel like” of 112.6….tomorrow is supposed to be a little cooler.
Any suggestions from the people in the Southern US? (thanks Nick & jck, I read yours & it was helpful…do you have anything to add?).
And yes Sonja, my camera batteries are charged…I’ll get some before & afters….maybe even the TR flag flying “during”.
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08/20/2009 – Well the first “bad boy” of the season is planning to pay Nova Scotia a visit on Sunday, his name is Bill (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/)….right now they say the “best case” is winds of about 75 mph & 4 inches of rain….we won’t talk about the “worst case” right now, but it’s winds about 140 mph (I could race Scummy on his bike with a skateboard & a sail 😀 ) and a lot of damage.
So we do the normal things at home….have 3 20lb tanks of propane filled, lots of water, food, cash, etc.
At work, we make sure we get a full backup & put the tapes in the vault at the bank….we’ll shut down “non-critical” systems Friday before leaving work….everyone will have a fully charged cell phone. We have a disaster recovery plan that is up-to-date & we follow it.
What does everyone else do to prepare when you “know” a disaster is most likely going to happen?