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Hurricane proofing my bog?

Since the eye of Hurricane Irene is going to be directly over us. (South Jersey) I have a 55gallon bog in my backyard and we have been getting a good amount of rain pretty much every week, it is pretty saturated already. The hurricane is supposed to be bringing about a foot of rain and heavy winds. Should I prepare my bog? Like drilling extra holes in the plastic or just putting a tarp over it?
 
I would just put a big tarp over it..make sure the edges of the tarp are outside of the bog edges, (so the water doesnt run off the tarp and into the bog) and weigh down the edges of the tarp heavily with stones/bricks/ etc..

Scot
 
Yeah. ALOT of bricks.. Like.. cinderblocks.. Might be a good idea to tie the tarp to them too. Run rope through the grommets.
 
I haven't been paying attention, but how strong of a hurricane are we talking? I grew up in south Florida, so as a veteran of far too many hurricanes, cinder blocks and bricks are projectiles. If you're going to tarp it, I'd recommend driving rebar stakes into the ground to tie it off. You may also want to overlap two tarps to make a flap so that the tarp can't get sucked off the bog. Tornadoes man...

Keep us posted, we'll be keeping you in our thoughts.
 
I haven't been paying attention, but how strong of a hurricane are we talking? I grew up in south Florida, so as a veteran of far too many hurricanes, cinder blocks and bricks are projectiles. If you're going to tarp it, I'd recommend driving rebar stakes into the ground to tie it off. You may also want to overlap two tarps to make a flap so that the tarp can't get sucked off the bog. Tornadoes man...

Keep us posted, we'll be keeping you in our thoughts.

Depening on where you live on the East coast, you could see winds between 40 to 80mph and potentially a LOT of rain..(possibly winds up to 100mph, but I doubt that).. I doubt the wind will be strong enough to turn bricks or cinder blocks into projectiles! ;) I wouldnt worry about that..but the winds have the potential to be very damaging, in terms of trees down and power knocked out..also lots of flooding possible..she's a big one, especially for these parts..

Personally I will be just out her range..thankful for that!..but I have a lot of family and friends in the Southerrn Tier of NY who are in the zone..

Scot
 
I'm probably going to be pulling my plants out of the bog garden (they're in individual pots for this purpose) and sheltering them in either the garage or under the porch.

I'd drive some metal stakes into the tarp to secure it. Drilling extra holes will be too much work, and not enough time to do it.
 
Sounds like one of biggest dangers from Irene could be the storm surge, causing massive flooding:

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/show.html

"Irene's storm surge may flood New York City's subway system"
wow..
If I lived right on the coast, I would be boarding up the house and moving inland right now..

Scot
 
Very interesting analysis Scotty

I dunno what to do. I am about a half mile north of Sunrise Highway (everybody south of Sunrise, 425,000 people, is to prepare for evacuation to higherground if the storms course stays as predicted).

And what to do with the plants is a whole nother thing to figure out...
 
The winds will be a constant 50mph on Sunday with gusts up to 100...sounds high. I tarped it anshould be fund put a couple brick like object leaning on the edge. Hopefully that will do. Im not to concerned of the wind, was more concerned of rain. We shall see. Should be fun!
 
  • #11
Please remember that hurricanes bring tornadoes. I'm very wary of leaving loose objects outside during a hurricane. That's probably because a streetlight made a skylight in my childhood bedroom during hurricane Andrew :p
 
  • #12
The winds will be a constant 50mph on Sunday with gusts up to 100...sounds high. I tarped it anshould be fund put a couple brick like object leaning on the edge. Hopefully that will do. Im not to concerned of the wind, was more concerned of rain. We shall see. Should be fun!

Good luck Paul!
and keep us posted!

Scot
 
  • #13
My bog garden is tarpped, 25 pound stage weighs are holding it down. All my pots are under the porch. The rain is starting in Fredericksburg, it looked really angry in Newport News.
 
  • #14
That's where I am (Newport News). Looked angry but didn't get any rain yet. All of my plants are now in my workshop with shop lights on a timer over them. Have a small generator hooked up to the shop - the big generator refuses to run - governor is acting up. We may be in the dark if the power goes out but the cp's will have light - to many seedlings to loose :0o: We went without power for 2 weeks after Isabel.
 
  • #15
We need to meet up sometime. Sounds like you're prepared.
 
  • #16
Well sorta-kinda, not so much, did what any ole 70 year old could. Move some, rest some, move some more, rest even more - finally said thats good enough. If it blows away musta needed a new one.
I'm turnin in I'm sure as the new day dawns I'll see something I missed before it got dark.

L8R
 
  • #17
Well that was dissapointing... we had our power flicker last night and that was it. My bog didn't even get touched so that's good. We didn't get the winds like we were supposed to.
 
  • #18
Everything is good here. I'm happy I covered the bog garden, we got a lot of rain and quite a bit of wind.
 
  • #19
Well there was wind & about a foot of rain. Lost power starting at 2:00PM Friday (long before any wind or rain) first off then back on for an hour or so til 11:00 AM Saturday. Since then nothing but DARK except the plants and the small fridge with my insulin in it in the shop.

I was actually composing a post about the ups & downs when the power went off. Was saying if it's this bad now what's it gonna be like when Irene does hit.

With FIOS after 3 1/2 hours of battery backup for the outside box you loose everything including your landline phone.

Daughter who only lives about 15 minutes away offered to have her husbad bring me their Brand New never used generator this morning - it was even full of gas! They never lost power.

Collected lots of the rain water but it looks nasty, not sure it'll get used - maybe in the humidifier, don't know why it's cloudy.

Probably put the plants back out tomorrow.

Hope everyone else faired as well as we did here.
 
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