For those of you who think people are overreacting...the East Coast (or at least the Mid-Atlantic) hasn't seen a hurricane since Isabel in 2003. That was devastating, and it was only a category 1. Irene is expected to move through as a 2. It's similar to Ike (2008) in both sheer size (it's over 600 miles wide) and intensity, and Ike was a disaster of historic proportions in Texas. And Irene is expected to move up the coast pretty much right on the edge of the water, meaning it's not going to lose much strength.
Irene's expected to directly pass right over where I live tomorrow. Heavy, torrential rain starts tonight and goes through Sunday morning, with 10-15 inches quite possible. They're calling for up to 90 MPH winds. And to top it all off, the heart of the storm is expected to move through pretty close to high tide, meaning that the storm surge is going to top off already high water. Everything is in place for this to be a really really devastating storm, if not disastrous...probably the worst storm we've experienced in my lifetime.