I am appalled by some of the comments on this thread! I live in Jacksonville, NC, which as the crow flies is only about 15-20 miles inland from the coast. We are south of where Irene made landfall and our portion of the coast does not jut out as far as Cape Lookout, but it started raining Friday evening and continued to rain until about 6:00 pm on Saturday. At times the rain was some of the hardest I have seen in my over 60 years of life. It is estimated that our county got 12 inches of rain during that period and some areas got as much as 15 inches. There is widespread flooding on the coast, but the recent severe drought allowed the inland areas to absorb much of that extra water. In contrast, the ground in the Northeast is more saturated.
The wind continued to blow all Saturday afternoon with occasional gusts of up to 70 miles per hour long after the eye of the storm had passed over. Several tornadoes were reported in the state as well. There is always the possibility that any hurricane can spawn tornadoes. I saw video of one house that was completely demolished by a tornado which is cetainly a significant event in the lives of the family that lived there. Our power went out at 9 am and, thankfully, came back on about 7:30 pm, but people who live in the Outer Banks will be without power well into next week or longer.
I have lived in Eastern NC since 1957 and have been through many hurricanes, several of which were had stronger winds than Irene, but I do not remember one that was such a large, slow moving rain event. One meteorologist who has been at the same TV station for at least 30 years kept saying the same thing as we were listening to him over the radio since the power was out. There were not that many deaths because, unlike the people of New Orleans, the people of NC know how to prepare for hurricanes and local and state governments order MANDATORY evacuations of low lying areas. The high rise bridges which lead to the beach are closed when wind gusts reach 45 mph, so the people know that they stay on the beach at their own risk and that no one will come to rescue them until after the storm passes.
I know that the media frequently hype things and desire to do all they can to give Obama another excuse for his abject failure as POTUS, but I would caution the freepers not to make light of the unusual weather event we in NC have just experienced! We believe that when she gets finished with the east coast of the US, Irene will prove to be one for the record books!