But by no means the end of days. Lower Manhattan -- Manhattan in general -- hit it lucky. To the disappointment of the news crews, but not many other folks, the hurricane was both milder and shorter than predicted. There was some damage, and flooding in Staten Island and Brooklyn (I haven't heard about Queens, but I imagine there's some isolated flooding there, too) but no wide-spread power outages, giant storm surges, etc. I went out at about 2 to check on the birds, and the rain had pretty much stopped. A brief bit of sun, then gray for the rest of the day, rain on and off, wind on and off; but by the time the wind really picked up again near sunset the rain had ended and so much water had drained (good job, storm sewers!) that evening high tide was no concern.

As for the birds, I saw nine or ten worn out ducks sleeping on pilings up by the rock beach; cormorants drying their wings in the wind; some rather beautiful pigeons that don't look familiar; and these poor little guys, who were cleaning their feathers and so tired from clinging to a tree branch for ten hours fighting the wind that they didn't care that someone was sitting right beside them.




No windows blew out in the neighborhood, and not all that many got taped up. Of those that did, here are some nice ones.


jauntiest


most elegant


most artistic


most invisible


By the end of the day we had no more rain but a lot of wind. And a hell of a dramatic sky.









Good night, Irene.