All Hurricanes are Local - As I woke up this morning in my normal groggy state, I suddenly jolted awake realizing it was now daylight – time to survey the damage Irene left Solomons with. After a week of tracking Irene and trying to figure out how Solomons would be affected and how to best prepare, the answer has played out. There are a lot of downed trees and power outages, not exactly good news, but all things considered could have been a lot worse.
Solomons is located at the mouth of the Patuxent River at the Chesapeake Bay. In the days prior to Hurricane Irene’s arrival, the tracking took on varying degrees of concern with much comparison to Hurricane Isabel in 2003 and how approaching Irene might impact Solomons’ vulnerable location.
As I watched the maps changing hourly and struggling to see how Solomons might be affected as the meteorologists determined areas of severity as to expected conditions, I found myself responding to the numerous calls from concerned family members as to what I knew about about how Irene might affect Solomons. As comprehensive as the reporting on The Weather Channel is, it was still hard for my family to know what the predictions for Solomons were, as the reporting indicated areas more generally as Eastern Shore, Eastern Shore of the Bay, and Western Shore of the Bay. They live in South Florida and experienced the wrath of the numerous storms a few years back, so know firsthand how important it is to take the unpredictability of hurricanes very seriously. With Solomons being located just off the Western Shore of the Chesapeake Bay on the Patuxent River, applying the various spaghetti tracks and commentary of the various meteorologists made it very apparent that determining impact on Solomons was very localized in nature.
So, as the rain began on Saturday morning , my normal weekend routine as a Realtor was sidelined – waterfront showings on hold for the time being, that’s for sure. The preparations for what probably would be a once in a lifetime event in Solomons had been made, I had resolved myself to continued monitoring of Irene’s track as long as the power held out.
All that tracking had me thinking about location – a lot – and how examining location too generally can be a big mistake, certainly with regard to Irene. Forgive me, but I’m a Realtor and what’s a Realtor to do when faced with a day inside with a lot of wind and rain and so much emphasis on location and how all that weather is going to affect Solomons - but to think about location and real estate.
So much of the reporting on the current real estate market is very general in nature making it very difficult for consumers to determine if it’s a good time to buy or sell, and in some cases downright scaring them. In my opinion, it is incumbent on Realtors to provide very localized analysis to consumers to make good decisions about their investments and to try to take the fear factor out of it. One of the vehicles to present that localized real estate analysis is on Active Rain. There are consumers who find this level of detail to be very useful and we need to reach out in a variety of ways to be the best advocates we can.
Our customers rely on us to give the best indicators possible, just like we rely on “weather authorities” to give us the best guidance possible, to be best prepared for the situations we may be facing.
Hope all who have been in the path of Irene have fared OK
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