Glenn - we're a couple hundred miles from the coast - a 6 hour drive or more. They sometimes have a hurricane off the NC coast and we just get partly cloudy skies and a breeze. When Hugo came through Charleston, SC in 1989 and then inland to Charlotte, we had a disaster here - trees & power lines down, chimneys blown off, etc. We were out of power in my area for 2-3 days but many in the Charlotte area were without power for 3 weeks. That was a pretty scary morning with the wind noise, and hearing trees being snapped off. I lost a big pine in the back yard, and had some water damage, but was luckier than a lot of people. It was very strange going back to work after a couple days and having the National Guard directing traffic at intersections (no power, no traffic signals, plus a lot of signals blown down). I'd rather not go through that again! The way Irene is tracking we may see nothing from it in Charlotte, or just a breezy rain.