First things first.<\/p>\n
My heart goes out to all of the people from the Outer Banks to New England that are facing the after-effects of Hurricane Irene right now, including major flooding that is ravaging many people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s homes and livelihoods. And the lost lives, of course, are the most devastating of all of Irene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s effects.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the scenario I imagined, certainly, where a hurricane does this much damage this far north, while leaving so much of the typically hurricane-pillaged areas relatively untouched.<\/p>\n
Many organizations have already set up relief efforts all along the coast. The American Red Cross, for instance, is soliciting financial and blood donations (Irene has interrupted many blood drives previously scheduled, so the Red Cross is eager to keep supplies steady) and deploying volunteers. Click here<\/a> to donate and\/or volunteer.<\/p>\n Two other organizations also involved in Hurricane Irene relief efforts are The Salvation Army<\/a> and Samaritan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Purse<\/a>. Both organizations accept online donations and are also recruiting volunteers.<\/p>\n On the personal front, we received wonderful news late Saturday afternoon about our house. LCB and I had been watching webcams and so forth much of Friday and Saturday, and were predicting that we would at least have some damage to our deck from Irene. Against the odds, it seems, when a storm like this hits our island, our house and even our deck remain intact. We are most, most thankful. Soon, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be traveling back there to see friends and assess the house for any small impacts of Irene.<\/p>\n I hope the waters recede quickly for my northern friends, and I hope the rest of hurricane season 2011 proves to be mind-numbingly dull for all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First things first. My heart goes out to all of the people from the Outer Banks to New England that are facing the after-effects of Hurricane Irene right now, including major flooding that is ravaging many people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s homes and livelihoods. And the lost lives, of course, are the most devastating of all of Irene\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s effects. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[483,485,484,105,100,465,486],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islandlife","tag-after-irene","tag-disaster-relief-for-irene","tag-effects-of-hurricane-irene","tag-island-life","tag-island-living","tag-island-mom","tag-ways-you-can-help-after-irene"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}