Irene in the House

This morning we awoke to a mess of leaves all over the street, a freakishly clean car, and a nearly empty freezer, but other than that there was little sign of Hurricane Irene's overnight "wrath" in our neighborhood.  But we were not-so-secretly worried about how the storm treated the Bungalow, so we took a detour up to Forest Glen on the way to my sister's place in Virginia.  Little more than a half-mile from the house, we saw a tree that had formerly lined Illinois Avenue laying nicely on top of a surprisingly unsquooshed Cadillac.  Small limbs were abundant on the ground, but it wasn't until we got to Sixteenth Street Heights that the traffic signals were blinking.  Once we crossed the border into Maryland at Eastern Avenue the power to the signals went out altogether; not a good sign, we thought!  To make it worse, on the last split before the Seminary, at Brookville and Linden, a DOT traffic sign blinked "detour to Forest Glen."  Uh oh.  But from there on, no sign of Irene at all.  Driving through the tunnel on DeWitt, I crossed my fingers, but emerging from it we saw the fountain working, the trees standing, and the Bungalow, er, Bungalowing.  Roof looked wetter than normal.  Abby says the extreme left (as seen from the front) corner of the porch roof looked like something happened to it, as did the middle of the right side, but I think both of those things were already like that.  (You decide: there are before and after pics to compare below.) Not to mention, both are set to be replaced completely, so who cares?  Sigh of relief...

Bungalow pre-Irene

Bungalow, post-Irene.  Supposed new lean at far left,
and supposed deeper rut at center right of porch roof.

I went inside while Abby walked around the neighborhood with the kids.  Downstairs, where everything is rightfully musty normally, there was no sign of new wetness.  Upstairs, where there are BROKEN WINDOWS, no sign of wetness on the floors.  That's right: hurricane... broken windows... dry floor.  It had only stopped raining about an hour before, so it's not like things had time to dry.  Weird.  The only interior "issue" seemed to be the far corner of the upstairs bathroom, where there was wetness on the floor.  But that was due to a bad seal on the vent leading up through the roof, so all in all, the house made it through Irene like a champ.  Hooray!

Wetness next to the toilet.
Who can't aim?  Irene!

We met another new neighbor on the way out: Peter, a pediatrician who commutes to work via Ride On (the Montgomery County bus system), and his 18-month-old daughter Anna.  He recommended I get on one or more of the area's many resident Yahoo listservs.  We'll see... it might be a great way to find out the skinny on what people really think about the place... or it might just be a good way to be annoyed by people who themselves are annoyed.  Other than that, we're still waiting for the MHT decision.  Believe me, you'll all hear about it as soon as we do!