The wind is still gusting mightily, so I haven’t taken down the duct and masking tape covering our windows inside and out, or removed the one-and-a-half tons of home-made sandbags stacked up against our back door, as a barrier both to flood waters and looters, but “Big Talk Irene,” as The Boss now calls the hurricane that wasn’t, has passed.

One nearby, lower-lying street got flooded, and another nearby street saw some trees destroyed, but our street appears to have emerged unscathed. The ocean did come about ten feet onto our street, but as an old-timer assured me would be the case Friday night, having one of the highest-lying streets in the area protected us.

Still, we took nothing for granted, excepting for the general unreliability of the City of New York and the media. We took all manner of precautions, and were in a position to quickly take to higher ground, if necessary.

The short version, as to why we rode out Irene at home:

• We couldn’t get a hotel room anywhere nearby;
• We didn’t want to spend two or three sleepless nights in a city shelter dominated by black racist cut-throats;
• We didn’t want to risk running into said cut-throats while traveling to and from said shelter;
• We had no intention of permitting said cut-throats to loot our home, while we were away; and
• Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s one-size-fits-all warnings were inaccurate, regarding our particular street, and he has a credibility problem, to begin with.

There’s a longer version, over at my sanctuary blog.