Property insurer Chubb Corp. Wednesday warned it would report up to $475 million in pretax catastrophe losses in the third quarter, most of it coming from late August’s Hurricane Irene.

Chubb said $300 million to $375 million of the $400 million to $475 million in total losses came from Irene, which caused severe flooding and wind damage from the Carolinas all the way up to Vermont last month.

As Hurricane Irene made her way up the coast I prepared my own family for the potential impact and anxiously monitored social media traffic with an eye towards how it was being utilized by citizens,  government agencies and volunteer organizations. Unfortunately, we lost power on Saturday night (see above pic) and did not get service back until late Tuesday. This, however, did provide me the opportunity to view social media content using the one communication devise I had left: my smartphone.

Kim Stephens @ idisaster 2.0