I used to wish I had a few trees in my yard; but after last night, I'm happy with my two sage bushes and morning glory vines.

Hurricane Irene came through last night, uprooting hundreds of trees nearby, flooding the low-lying areas, and causing us to spend $200 that we didn't have in hurricane preparation.  Luckily for us, our house (and neighborhood in general) survived the wind and rain without so much as a power outage. 
The neighborhood next to us was not so lucky.  Huge trees uprooted and fell over on cars, fences, and a couple roofs.

Hurricane Irene is responsible for 18 deaths across 8 states.  (Yahoo!) 

I count myself as particularly lucky that I could get my kids up and celebrate my youngest son's birthday today.  We have no damage, no power outage, and we still have our lives.  And while we breath a sigh of relief that Hurricane Irene "was overblown hype" and not nearly as bad as we thought it was going to be, the friends and family of those 18 people just lived through a nightmare they will never be able to forget. 

Edited to Add:  The death toll has now climbed to 38.  (Yahoo!)