Officials in St. Mary's County, Maryland have issued a Code Red notification to residents downstream on the St. Mary's River from St. Mary's Lake. The area has received 7 inches of rain from Irene, and the deluge of water may be too much for the lake's dam to take.
From NBC Washington:
Due to the heavy rains from Hurricane Irene, St. Mary's County issued a potential St. Mary's Lake Dam failure notification.
Irene had poured more than 7 inches of rain in the area by the time the Code Red notification at 10:40 p.m.
People who live downstream from the dam are threatened by the possibility of significant flooding.
NBC Washington has done a 180 in their reporting, saying that the dam won't fail now, just overflow. Here's the new and revised story from them:
“The dam itself at St. Mary’s River Park is holding well,” said Christy Bright. “There is no imminent danger or possible danger with the dam itself. What is happening is that the level of the lake is rising, which is going to cause water to enter a spillway, which is a proactive measure to safeguard the residents from the dam and also keep the potential weight off the dam."
Elsewhere, there have been reports of tornadoes in Virginia, Maryland and Delaware, the latter of which caused damage to 17 homes:
Delaware's Gov. Jack Markell said he believed a tornado tore through 17 homes near Lewes, Del., and off Rehoboth Beach, the National Weather Service reported a waterspout -- essentially, a tornado out at sea. There were no reports of major injuries.
At least five homes in the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach, Va., sustained major damage from a tornado, said Mary Hancock, a spokeswoman for the city, but the area had already been evacuated and there were no injuries reported.
Meanwhile on the western front, Irene appears to be taking aim at Cape May NJ as opposed to Long Island as the current NHC forecast still maintains. I base this off the current radar out of Dover AFB in Delaware, where it seems the center of Irene is headed more towards Cape May NJ rather than paralleling the New Jersey coast. I could be misjudging the radar, though, but either way it's still going to bring strong winds and more heavy rain to New York City. If it goes west of the city, there could be a larger surge into New York Bay since the winds will be blowing from the east as opposed to the north.
Here's the radar from Irene as of 1:24 AM EDT. The center of the storm is located just above the "te" in Chincoteague. Click to enlarge in a new window.
Stay tuned to the National Hurricane Center for updates. A new advisory comes out at 2 AM EDT, with subsequent advisories being issued at 5 AM, 8 AM, 11 AM, 2 PM, so on and so forth.
Sat Aug 27, 2011 at 10:34 PM PT: Oh, and like me on Facebook if you don't mind my posting 100 weather things to your news feed every day. :)