Stormgirrl: hanging out at the Radnor High evac center

Bonnie Cook is blogging her experiences as part of the Community Emergency Response Team. She has been deployed to the emergency evacuation center at the Radnor High School.

Well, the emergency shelter at Radnor High has been set up. There are two township residents here in the school cafeteria, and we are having a fine chat. There is no TV. The lights and power went out, leaving us in the dark at one point, but the generator clicked on, and now we are working with the center part of the room in darkness. It's a little eery, but we are getting used to it.

There is coffee and cookies, and bottled water if we need it. We expect the cots to arrive any minute.

CERT instructor Joe Maguire just came by wearing his yellow slicker to see that we are all right, and we are.

It is teeming rain outside the cafeteria windows. Maguir reports that in downtown Wayne, there there is a power outage. One portion of the township has been placed under an evacuation order, so we expect more people to be here shortly.

We are worried that the water will come into ourt homes while we are here. but we feel gladf not to have to face it for a while.

We understand from talking to Office Maguire that a transformer blew over by King of Prussia  Road, and police are going over to look at that, and get PECO out there trio fix it.

As the night goes on and the rain comes down in buckets, as it si doing, it makes us uneasy that some of the creeks in Radnor will flood.

We are waiting to hear more about the storm and how it's affecting our neighbors. Every so often, we log on to the Weather Service and figure out how Irene is progressing. A report that tornadoes were expected in Delaware and South Jersey and Brookhaven in Delaware County had our attention.

All for now. We will turn our attention to the weather warnings, and check in later.