Hurricane Sandy Vs. Old Town

Posted on the 30 October 2012 by Msadams @HilaryFerrell

Before I launch into any pictures, I just want to say that Mr. A and I are fine.  Despite the swirling winds and torrential rains, we managed to escape Sandy completely unscathed (minus the 12 hours or so without power).  So thanks for all the thoughts and prayers.  Let’s send those prayers over to those on the Eastern Shore and in NY and NJ, who all seemed to face the largest fallout from Sandy.

Last night, Mr. A and I went to bed without power, praying that we’d make it through the night unharmed.  Luckily, I awoke this morning to the sounds of our power coming back on.  After taking a look around our apartment, it seemed like we managed to make it through the storm with nothing less than a small power outage.

Once Mr. A woke up, we decided to take a stroll around Old Town to see how badly the neighborhood had been damaged.  We headed straight to the waterfront, which typically floods even with the small rainstorm.

Turns out the stores near the waterfront were well prepared, considering how often Old Town floods.

We were expecting to see water a few feet deep but we were only met by a few inches of water.  It was so shallow that it didn’t even met the front doors of the closest businesses.

We headed over to the docks to see how the boats fared.

That’s the Woodrow Wilson bridge in the background.  Usually the water is about 3 feet below the dock walkway.  I was surprised to see how many boats stayed in the water during the storm.

This is one of the docks where you can catch a taxi over to National Harbor, guessing people won’t be doing that for a few days.

Next to the dock is a waterfront park that we go to a lot.  It’s also pretty susceptible to flooding.  A good portion of the path on the way to the park was covered in water.

The marina over at this part of the park was also pretty flooded.  That gazebo typically has about three feet of room between it and the water. If you look really hard, you can see the top of the capitol in the background on the right hand side.

Even though the path to the park was pretty flooded, the park itself wasn’t actually too bad.  The water is definitely a lot higher than usual but nothing crazy.

Overall, I was pretty shocked that Sandy didn’t do more damage to our neighborhood. We didn’t see any downed trees or damaging flooding, which is hard to believe with the howling winds and absurdly loud pops we heard last night.  I am so thankful that someone was watching over us last night because it definitely could have been a million times worse.

I hope all of you out there are safe from Sandy’s wrath and woke up with just as little damage as we did.

How are you all faring?