It was a wild night for many along the American eastern seaboard, including a Regina woman living in Maryland.
Wanda Kuperus said they slept in the living room for safety and they could hear transformers exploding throughout the night.
“When transformers explode there’s sort of a loud pop or bang,” explained Kuperus. “It’s pretty distinctive so once you’ve heard it once you recognize it again.”
Despite that, Kuperus said that she woke up with power and only lost it a few times throughout the night. But that’s not to say they are completely in the clear.
“Throughout the Baltimore County and Baltimore City area there are lots of trees down blocking major highways…and there’s flooding, which makes driving treacherous,” she said.
As for her home, Kuperus said they got off easy with only some twigs and leaves scattered around the yard but some of her neighbours do have water damage.
“Our yard is littered with leaves and small twigs but that’ sit…no large branches came down no trees fell on us or anything like that, so we feel pretty lucky.”
Like a windy, late summer day
A Regina man living in Maryland felt rather grateful Sunday morning.
After 20 hours of rain and heavy wind from Irene, Dave Panchyk woke up to a pleasant scene.
“I’m beginning to see the sun through the clouds, you know there’s still some wind, but there’s no rain, sidewalks dry, crickets are going like mad,” said Panchyk. “It’s just like a windy, late summer day now.”
There are a few branches laying on the ground and heavy rain pelting windows last night. But other than that, Panchyk says there wasn't too much damage and the storm wasn’t as bad as he had feared.
New York City "spared"
As millions of people and businesses are without power and over 9,000 flights in the New York City area have been delayed Irene didn’t prove to cause as much damage as expected in New York.
Roger Wiebe, with the Regina Police Service who is in New York for the World Police and Fire Games said Irene's biggest target was left unscathed.
“The hurricane just transferred into a tropical storm and New York City itself was spared,” Wiebe said.
He added that despite the lack of extreme weather people are still limited.
“There’s really nothing that’s open right now because the transit system’s still shut down,” explained Wiebe. “Everybody’s kind of just hunkered down in their hotel rooms waiting for things to get back to normal around here.”
With files from News Talk Radio's Joel Gasson, Zahir Muslun and Brendan Pawliw.
Edited by News Talk Radio's Sabeen Ahmad.
