Isabel … not so bad here.

Luckily, the center of the storm skirted to the south and west of Washington. What we got here was pretty tame.

At seven p.m. I was at work and things seemed like they were going to get a little squirly. The roof of the brownstone next door was ripped off and sat in the middle of Calvert Street … debris was flying all over the place. Scared police and firemen were taping off the block. Nothing was going on at work so I decided to walk home. A block away from my work place I started to hear the odd popping noise of windows smashing all around me. They kept telling us that the worst was going to come between 10 and 2 a.m., so I was getting pretty excited.

As I got a block or two away from work the wind seemed to die down. I then remembered that the corner where my workplace is located is the windiest spot in Baltimore (a 5 mph breeze translates into 30 mph gales there), so I decided to stroll around and take photos and cam movies. They didn’t really turn out so well, it was too windy for me to be able to hold the camera still.

My apartment is about 100 feet in the air, has 10 huge old windows and I was worried they might suffer some damage. After picking up a six pack (priorities), I went home to make sure everything was okay. Luckily, my windows face north and west (the wind was coming in from the southeast) and I could barely even tell there was a hurricane outside. My cat, who usually braves thunderstorms from the back of the closet, was lying in the middle of the living room blissfully unconcerned.

At 11 or so, after finishing the six pack and being assured by the d.c. weathermen that the worst was over for me (Baltimore meteorologists are retards … even I could read the maps and tell that we were largely in the clear. They were still screaming, “The worst is yet to come!” The verdict, I am a better weatherman than trained Baltimore meteorologists, it was in fact nearly over for us.), I decided climb onto the roof and enjoy what was left of Isabel. I estimate the winds up there to have been steady at about 50 mph with gusts of about 70 or more. I braced myself up against the wall to the elevator shaft in the southeast corner and just took in the whole scene. The clouds were breaking up and flying over the harbor, downtown and past me at an incredible speed. The light rain was slapping me in the face. The air was full of salt from the Atlantic, 150 miles away. 100 to 200 feet below me (I live on top of a hill) blue sparks were dancing back in and forth on the power chords in the alleys. Fire trucks and police cars were speeding all over the place. I was dunk. It was beautiful.

Update: A friend just called me from Canton. Its high tide now and the Harbor is washing up over Boston Street (11.56 am). I'm going to go check it out.