Hurricane Irene - damage and destruction on a small scale

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Hurricane Irene didn't do as much wind damage as expected but for the coastal maritime community it was still a problem.
 In New Bedford , Ma. USA there were several boats damaged by the wind.

In one case a single boat got loose and tangled up with 3 other boats then dragged them all across the harbor to the shore and caused damage.
11 of the hundreds of boats in the harbor were reported to have gotten loose and ended up ashore.

The New Bedford-Fairhaven bridge was closed for three hours as one sailing vessel's mast snapped and lay across a small section of the bridge after it crashed into it.

This resulted in the exaggerated amount of time that it was closed due to  possibly brain dead people just standing there staring and not taking the initiative to just push the aluminum mast aside. Gawkers were all over the place.... This is hearsay as I wasn't there at the time myself. 

In one case while standing on a sidewalk at least 70 feet from the beach and behind a retaining wall the police pulled up with lights flashing and were almost in hysterics screaming at us to "Get Outta Here" as if we were about to be killed any second.

The 45 mile an hour wind gusts were just too much for them. Although it was barely enough to create white caps, the local cops seem to be living for the day when they might actually be needed for a real hurricane and were just rehearsing.

  Here is a video of a beautiful sailing vessel, the "Satisfaction" out of Port Townsend, Washington getting beat up onto the rocks after it slipped it's mooring or anchorage, as well as some beachfront video.

In this video you can see that the wave action was in no way a threat to life and limb unless you couldn't swim and tried to drown yourself in it on purpose.

There was also some damage onshore as you can see in this set of
photos taken about the city of New Bedford.

All in all the worst problem was downed tree limbs and power outages that lasted a few days in some places.

Go here to see a bunch of photos of wind damage in the city


Go here to see video of a boat getting pummeled and whitecaps in the harbor.