Thursday, 16 Sept. 7:11 pm.
Early this morning tuned into the 5 am weather track page and left confident Santiago would at most get intense rains. At 7 am left for Santiago (in the center of the country). Only ran into rains after Bonao. We passed lots of public school children on their way to school. In Santiago, morning school went as normal, but afternoon classes were suspended. Was at the Centro Leon which closed to the general public at 3 pm. On the way up from there it was raining, but there were no winds. In Santiago, it was just a rainy day, nothing out of the usual. On the way back, it was the same, until around Villa Altagracia where the rains were gone and the clouds left space for some blue skies. Rest of the drive into Santo Domingo was without rain. It is not raining in Santo Domingo.
The performance of this storm, though shows again one has to be prepared once a big storm is in the vicinity and wait for it to pass, monitoring it closely.