Five years later: Remembering Hurricane Irene

Five years ago this week, I travelled to York, Pennsylvania to visit family and cover Hurricane Irene for AccuWeather.com. The storm developed near the islands in the Caribbean, threatened Florida, then raked through eastern North Carolina as a Category 1 hurricane, causing damage at the Outer Banks, where I had just vacationed. It went on to create massive flooding in the Northeast U.S. The storm killed nearly 50 people and caused over $16 billion in damage.

This "supercut" combines 39 live videos that AccuWeather.com put online during the storm:

In North Carolina, winds were recorded up to 101 mph on the coast. A breach caused by Hurricane Irene in 2011, tentatively named Irene Inlet. You can see this breach in the photo below and also on an animation of Google Earth satellite images that I later created.

Further up the Outer Banks, severe damage was done (not from the ocean, but from the sound) when storm surge inundated parts of Duck, North Carolina, where I had vacationed just two months ago. I was able to take some photos I had and compare them to new video to show the extent of damage.

Back in Pennsylvania, I headed down to the southeastern part of the state on the evening of August 26. On my way down, interstate signs warned of the Hurricane in Harrisburg, PA. The next night, the high winds and heavy rains woke all members of the house up around 4:30 AM, as the power went off occasionally. When I ventured outside at 7:00, I found most roads covered with downed leaves and branches, and half a dozen trees down right across the street (Edgewood Road) -- a surprising amount of damage for the distance from landfall. Here's my video from the storm, with photos below.

Flooding in the Carolinas was immense, with over 15 inches of rain. Rainfall amounts in the Northeast were mostly less than 10 inches, but it fell on mountainous terrain, creating immense damage (the photo below is from New York State). Some creeks broke their records by feet.