4:18 No rain now, hasn't been for about a half-hour, just these low, rapidly moving clouds curling in around from the NW and this Wind, still occasionally rising up into bursts of treebending, but for the most part just a few spare gusts. The sky is much lighter.

5:00pm Patches of blue in between clouds. The sun is out, and I think I'm going to take a run down to Island Park and check things out before it gets dark.

5:08 Well there's a refreshing number of cars out, traffic actually moving along on East Main Road. The clouds here are truly incredible, a low cumulus scudding against blue sky. There's a big tree down across from Sears, just tipped over, ripped up by the roots. Traffic lights are out in Middletown, people following "see and avoid" rules. Kmart and Almacs windows intact, still taped up, driving through a squally rainstorm now as clouds pass. Along East Main, along the sides of the road here, the density of branches down is spectacular.

Looks like about as far as it's possible to go on East Main. Just past Wyatt Square, power lines are down. A whole section knocked over, right before the Vinland winery, junction boxes, wires, lines, everything's down on the side of the road. Big yellow power trucks blocking the entire street, no way to get through up here, have to try the other side of the island.

Driving along the side roads, its like the day after the end of the world. Lots of trees down, only a few cars on the roads, and along the street, people just stirring out of their houses now to assess the damage. Off to the south and southeast, it's blue sky.

Cars are driving around with pieces of trees sticking out from their undercarriage where they've run over, picked them up, dragging them along. A giant fir tree cut down on the road by the airport.

The streets have a feeling like it is after a blizzard, the first few hardy souls wandering out, forging those first few trails, which in this case is no metaphor. Traffic is moving along briskly on West Main road. In front of the Starcase Cinemas, which strikes me as being parallel to the trouble on the other side, there are four poles down, a fifth snapped off near the top and tipped over, hanging by wires. Crews are already on the scene with a giant augur, redigging post holes for the fallen ones. There are plenty of tipped over trees and route number signs bent over. It seems like this higher part of the island must have borne the brunt of the wind. A big orange scoop plow runs along the road, literally plowing the tree parts over to the side.

Into Portsmouth now. I'm amazed at how many utility crews are out here; passing them on both sides. Trees have gone down over the classic stone retaining walls, knocking out sections. More state crews working, reducing West Main to one lane as a front loader works the piles, followed by high speed plow knocking back whatever's left.

Eerie signs of normalcy at the Gulf Station near Stringham, the turnoff for Melville. There are planters full of flowers just sitting there undisturbed, while out in front, on the street, there are these huges green expanses of tree limbs and foliage clotting two, three, and sometimes all four lanes. Moving north, looking down into the reservoir, the surface is choppy, and it's full, running up onto its green banks. Just passed a National Guard Humvee, an unusual sight for West Main road. The way the trees and greenery have gone down on the roads, with the cars running tracks through them, its like some sort of bizarre chromatic reversal of a snowstorm, a bizarro universe with green snow and cars crunching through drifts.

Back at Portsmouth Town Hall, now the flag is blowing east, the pole still bouncing back and forth, but blue skies behind it now. Turning north onto East Main, pretty much the same picture here, a few trees down in people's yards but not a sense of tremendous property damage.

Oh boy. St. Anthony's going to have to need a new Mass time sign; it's down and smashed, one of the trees in their yard down. Seems like a lot more trees lost here in the northern end of Portsmouth. Still haven't seen major property damage, though; not one broken plate glass window, even the ones that aren't taped up. Bunch of utility poles down across form the Dairy Mart — flat down to the ground, wires off, the whole nine yards. Not a good sign, re: electricity.

Coming down into the Park. There are a few trees down on Park Ave, blocking off one lane on each side, but luckily there doesn't seem to be damage to the houses. At the foot of the hill, I can see standing water ahead on the street, and a rainbow — a BIG rainbow — over the Sakonnet. A complete, 180-degree Rainbow! From far Sakonnet point to the right over the houses to the left. Quite impressive.

Not going to try driving the car; park it at the base of the hill and take the rest of it on foot.

The beach has been substantially reconfigured, and the water level in the street rapidly increases as you head east. Have to hop up and walk along the top of the seawall. The outflow from one of the storm drains is cutting a deep channel out through the beach right here, against these lampposts. There's a large crowd and what looks to be some emergency trucks up ahead. There are some radical new channels carved here into the beach, right at the concrete where the ice cream truck pulls in.

This is definitely high tide. Walking along the seawall, to my right, on the beach, the water is a little more than ankle deep, while to my left, on the street, it's flooded up almost to the top of the seawall, about two feet. There's a car over there, up to the doors, and a van up to his axles, trying to back out. It's really amazing that there's more water inside than outside. Obviously, it came in over the wall, and it's slowly draining. I can see it running through the cut in the wall and down the steps in front of Flo's Clam Shack, just a gusher of water pouring out, literally cascading down the steps and carving out a new channel, with chunks of Park Ave asphalt washed out over the seawall lying in the sand.

Flo's is major league effed up. The whole front is ripped off the building; you can look straight through into the back. The Flo's refrigerator, along with other stuff from the interior, looks like it came through the wall and fetched up in front of Chesters.

Gonna have to go another block up Park Ave in order to get across. Traffic's backing up here, with people having top turn around and head back, cuz there's no way through unless you've got extremely high ground clearance. Riverside street is dry, but there is water in the backyards, and I can see houses with some erosion and damage here.

Trying to get a fix on our house looking across yards...the chimney's still up, that's a good sign — and my grandfather's antique TV antenna's still on the roof. I was kinda hoping Bob would do me a favor and blow that down, but I guess you can't have everything.

Have to walk a long way down Riverside before you can cut over to the left. Coming down Gormley, things don't look as bad: phone poles are still up, less visible damage to these houses than the first block down by the beach. All the wires going into the house are okay, looks like all the windows are intact. Somebody lost a section of gutter or flashing, ended up in our yard. Out back in the garden, a couple of tomatoes fell off, but the cinderblocks did their job, cages still standing. Inside the house, it's deathly quiet, power off and dark, humid, but no visible signs of water. Everything held.

Heading back to the car. Lake Flo is halfway up the first block of Gormley, and amid the floating debris are bobbing what I suspect are the creosoted chunks of phone pole that Flos's used as their fencing. I'm just hoping that Park Ave has drained enough allow me to get past now, but it's still coming pretty far up all these side streets. Couple of screen doors on Ormerod look a bit the worse for the wear, buit seems like the extent of the visible property damage. Finally make it down at Park Ave and get another look at the damage to Flo's, truly sad and terrifying.

Heading down East Main road by Stub Toe lane; a lot of trees uprooted, and here's a big one leaning over the road in a way that I don't particularly like; drive just a little faster to get past the thing. Can't get down to Union Street — there's a whole row of phone poles flat bang down. Again, up at the high part of the island where the winds weren't restrained. It's the Union street traffic light and the telephone poles on the east side of the street. The second one to go over didn't even bend; the first tilted at 15 angle, second one failed ten feet up, then snapped, popped part of the side off in a greenstick fracture, and took the pole down so that its hanging off right across the double yellow at about six feet off the middle of the street. Past that, the traffic light, dead on the double yellow, and maybe 3-4 more poles flat down on the ends of their crossties over on the broken white on the right hand lane.

Word pictures don't do this scene justice, seeing the middle of East Main road occupied by phone poles lying over on their sides. There is an overpowering smell of green and snapped wood, a fresh, almost sour, mix of scrubbed air and wood resins.

At least I know that West Main road is passable. I double back to try cutting across on Schoolhouse Lane and see how far this gets me... with these narrow side roads, its a crapshoot.

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