Tropical Storm Irene Aftermath Video

Hurricane Irene occurred on August 28th, 2011 it completely destroyed the Northeast, but in particular Vermont. It was the first major storm to slam into the region in quite a few years. It did a considerable amount of damage to the state of Vermont. It washed out roads and completely destroyed some people's homes and in some cases their towns. The overall damage caused by this storm is in excess of 700 million dollars, every single river and stream in this state suffered from severe flooding due to the storm.
Tropical Storm Irene is only the second Tropical Storm to ever hit Vermont the other occurred in 1938. Sadly, during the storm some of Vermont's most prized artifacts were swept away such as the covered bridges which Vermont had become very famous for having. Towns such as Killington were completely blocked from contact from outside sources for about two weeks, and the total death toll within the state of Vermont was three. Rural towns in Vermont that were completely shut off from help were given supplies via helicopter because that was the only possible way to make contact with them.
Although when times are tough the best in people tends to come out as well. For example, the Phish benefit concert which all money raised was given to the victims of the storm. Phish is a Vermont born band and even though they have become national stars they haven't forgotten their roots in Vermont and showed their appreciation with the benefit concert. Another band which helped Vermonters by hosting a benefit concert was the band out of Waitsfield, Vermont, and that is Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.
At the end of the storm everyone was affected to a certain extent some much more than others. For example, I was not personally devastated by the storm due to the fact that our home is located on a hill and the town of Lyndon wasn't completely demolished. Yet, the logging trails in which we use frequently were completely washed out and are unusable at this time. On the flip side would be my friend Ian whos house is located directly beside the river, and was flooded very severely. The water completely filled his entire basement as well flood around two feet of water into their first floor.

Video Project Idea

For the video project our group will be video taping the Islam debate this thursday. We will provide people with the jist of what the debate was about and why the debate is being held. It will have audio from multiple different people that are attending the debate.

Story for Slideshow

    Changing a tire is an experience everyone will face at some point in their life, and if you don't know how to do it yourself you can have some problems. I have heard some horror stories about people attempting to change a tire and I will tell you some of these stories.
    One of my good friends Ryan was out mudding his truck during mud season in early spring. It was a usual day of mudding we have gone out to that area multiple times to go mudding, but on this particular day he went out by himself. He was going through a stretch of mud when all of a sudden the right side of his truck dropped right down and he came to an immediate halt. He got out of his truck and looked at his passenger side front tire and what he saw was his tire had came off the bead. So he needed to put his spare tire on and that is where the problem began. He had all the proper equipment to do it but he was in a foot of mud and his jack would just sink to the bottom every time he attempted to jack his front end up. He realized he wasn't going to get out of there himself, he was going to need some help. Where he was mudding had no cellphone service so he had to walk out of the woods and call a tow truck service, and he had to make sure they had a 4 wheel drive wrecker. He got ahold of them and luckily for him where he got stuck there was a road that made it easy for the wrecker to get to him, but the wrecker had to drive 25 minutes just to get to him. Ultimately he was charged 100 dollars just to have the wrecker pull him out, because they winched his truck up onto the flatbed and drove to a flat place and unloaded it so he could change his tire. He learned a great lesson that day, he learned to make sure to check his tires before he goes out mudding.
    Changing your tire is vital knowledge especially if you are by yourself and are out of range of other people. Although as my friend Ryan found out theres times where you have no choice, but to try to find help he had a situation that required the services of a wrecker. I myself have been in a situation like that, but it wasn't over a flat tire.