So, as seems to happen every time some natural disaster that barely shakes a wineglass occurs (yes, Devastating East Coast Earthquake, I'm looking at you), the media is all freaked out about Hurricane Irene, which is inching its way up the East Coast and might hit New York City with somewhere between Tropical Depression and Category 2 Hurricane-force wind and rain. Are you in the path? What are you doing to prepare? Is everything getting blown out of proportion?

Also, http://www.nytimes.com/projects/hurricanes/index.html

I'm in the path! A lot more than NYC is . I'm not doing anything to prepare, I'm not really worried about it. I do need to shop tonight, but that's just because I'm out of food.

I actually need to go food shopping as well, but I'm dreading it, because I know everyone's going to be madly stocking up on bread and milk and water, just like they do when there's a half-inch of snow forecasted to fall on the city, and it's not going to be fun. :/ Hopefully I can at least get my shopping done before work lets out for the day and avoid the insane evening rush.

I have the worst luck. Guess where I was on tuesday during the earthquake? Driving to a hotel in PA. Guess how long I'd been doing that? 20 minutes. Sheezes. And as if that's not enough to come back to, Irene is coming. Just what I need, two natural disasters! Blegh. I guess it's not soo bad, I could be in NYC, like Kerm!

Indeed you could, although I'm hoping that as usual they're overhyping the storm. And I doubt the earthquake seriously impacted your Pennsylvanian plans.

No, but if I'd just left a little bit later... I'm not going to feel a bit of this storm. Now I'm in Ohio, and getting back Monday.

Meh, I think it is going to be blown out of proportion... I doubt much will happen except for some heavy rain :/

You must be the type of person who decides to stay in their trailer, even though a type 5 hurricane is predicted, almost dies, and survives, says: "Nothing to it". And promptly dies.

Good luck, I'll send you pizza if you run out of food. I'm off to sleep, post me some videos or pictures

It shall only be a tropical storm by the time it hits New York.

Wednesday they were saying Quebec City through Gaspésie areas were supposed to get between 7.5 and 10 inch of rain monday, but now it's more like half. Winds shouldn't even be stronger than our typical snowstorms. It's supposed to go straight through Quebec, though, so I'm kinda expecting quite a lot of rain and maybe some small floodings in certain areas due to rivers.

It's hard to predict, though, because normally hurricanes become tropical storms once they cross the border, but last year Igor became a category 1 hurricane again when it flooded Newfoundland.

Fix'd

I'm glad I get just a few earthquakes a year. I'd like to say I've been through a Hurricane/Tornado but I left Maine in 2009 a day or two before the Hurricane Bill hit the coast, I left in the storm part of it's arrival.

My mom is all freaked though; The week or so after they leave New York City with helping my sister move in, an earthquake hits and now a potential hurricane. Haha.

I tend to think you're about right about that; the media tends to blow all these kinds of things out of proportion. I feel it's a bit ridiculous that they're shutting down the transit for a day and a half, personally.

You can never be too prepared. The "earthquake" may have been blown out of proportion, but this hurricane is an actual threat to places like New Jersey. The city of Wildwood has actually shut it's power grid in preparation, and that's not something they do lightly.

I live about three west of virginia beach, and people here are blowing it way out of proportion. Thursday there were no flashlights or batteries left at walmart, and lowes has sold all of its generators. As far as the earthquake goes I am 55 miles from the epicenter, and the reactions of people here where hilarious to say the least.

First I've heard of any of this! Woo

(Needless to say, it doesn't affect me at all)

I am just going to go through my day as normally as I do, I do not think anything will go down, either power or heavy objects. At the most, there will probably be a knocked over garbage can or something.

Now they're predicting $12 billions of damages

heh, then the real total is about $12 worth of damage. I seriously do think the media is hyping this up a bit too much...