Hurricane Irene in NC today

Well, as of this writing, we've been very, very fortunate with Hurricane Irene.  It's now about 6pm and our lights went out for about 30 minutes then came back on, thank goodness. Many folks further downeast have not been as fortunate, and the Berkeley Mall in Goldsboro had a roof collapse today.  The winds are still blowing pretty good outside at the moment with a bit of rain falling.  Hopefully this storm will weaken substantially as it moves on up the coast.