Sandy report
In my neck of the woods all’s well so far (knock wood vigorously). I still have power—which is nothing short of a miracle, considering how easily we lose it here. It’s been gloomy, mostly rainy, and windy, but there have even been moments of calm amidst the storm.
Those photos of New York are upsetting to me. New York’s been through worse, though, a lot worse, and I bet it will recover fairly quickly.
Hope you’re all doing well, too.
Good to hear that y’all are ok up there. Apropos of you comment about the frequency of power outages in general, it’s the same for us down here in Dixie (in Atlanta, at least). When I was growing up here we almost never experienced outages. Nowadays nary a month goes by without at least one or two. I’ve often wondered why that it is. That many more customers today? More storms/ wrecks/whatever? It’s a mystery…
I feel for the millions up North who are without power — and in some cases water! It’s an uncomfortable and humbling experience.
Good to receive the good report!
Hey by the way, I am blown away [wrong turn of phrase right now?] by how you provided posts in advance for us neo-denizens to peruse, just in case of power failure. It continues to be quite a privilege to frequent this forum.
Thanks . . .
M J R
Nowadays nary a month goes by without at least one or two. I’ve often wondered why that it is. That many more customers today? More storms/ wrecks/whatever? It’s a mystery…
Carl, who is your power provider? I live in Tallahassee on the city utility, and they’re very aggressive about cutting trees back from the power lines. In fact, they have a trimming service on contract, and they just go thru the neighborhoods on a multi-year schedule to trim any new growth.
Georgia Power may not be able to be so aggressive, or may choose not to go to that expense, only cutting when it is necessary to restore power.
Our power is generally pretty reliable. The exceptions are the occasional car wreck, or the suicidal squirrel who finds sweet, sweet death by shorting out a transformer.
Good to hear, and don’t let the climate change get you down. I’m using the term in the strict sense–a transition from sunny and calm to a hurricane is change, isn’t it? Back at those who Al-Gore-ithmically say the hurricane is “proof” of anthropogenic climate change. Because such storms never happened in ages past, yeah right.
Hang in there. I have no idea what you’re going through, this isn’t the kind of peril the elements pose in my area (only droughts and earthquakes around here… Best keep me mouth shut).
IRA DA: Yeah we’re Georgia Power. They do an OK job but we have a lot of very old infrastructure and folks here really love their trees (until a storm comes). Also, it doesn’t help that until 2008 we were a go-go/fast build boom town: Population when I was born in the 1950’s was less than 400,000, now it’s over 4 million (metro).
Came through OK here (between Philadelphia and Wilmington DE). Much more rain to my south, more wind damage to my north. No power outage.
Don’t like these things! After Irene, I thought we were safe for another 5-10 years. Wrong again!
Neo,
Glad to hear you have weathered the worst of Sandy. I have a brother-in-law near Andover, MA. They lost power yesterday evening and had a tree come down near the house. They have a generator and a gas grill in the garage. They will be watching movies and playing cards until the lights comes back and the roads are clear.
Millions of others are not so fortunate, particularly in NJ and NYC. From fly over country I wish everyone a speedy recovery.
Hurricane Sandy: The storm that dooms America?
Reporting in from a friend’s house. Our street in Newton MA has had no power since 3pm yesterday. A tree on the next street over fell onto a power line where it’s “on the ropes” and just missing a house. The impact snapped the line further down the street where it’s lying in the middle of the road behind a polce barrier. NStar is very helpfully telling all 40K affected customers in MA that power will most likely be on by midnight Nov. 1. Oh well, it’s a bit of a vacation and keeps me from obsessing about the election.
Paul in Boston,
My wife talked with her brother in Andover earlier this evening and the power is back on. I hope you have experienced the same.
We lost power on 5pm Monday, and I expect it will be out until Saturday earliest. This is based on Conn. Light &Power’s track record, which is horrible. In fact, at a news conference yesterday they admitted, they were going to spend two days “assessing, and then setting up logistic centers” rather than just getting the damn crews out on the road. They have supposedly learned a lesson form Irene and the Halloween storm from last year…. Ha!
I just talked to a colleague who lives in Old Lyme (80% out and on the Sound), and like me who lives more inland, niether of us, have seen a crew out working. Same for people in the Ledyard and Waterford areas. Where the hell are they?
BTW, I am doing this from work rather than home.
Neo, you (and I) are among the lucky. I live about 1 mile from the Raritan Bay in NJ. No major damage to my place. I lost power around 8:00 pm the night Sandy hit.
The damage done to my town is terrible: boats swept away (one marina alone lost 67 boats!), boats sitting on top of the railway draw bridge down the road from me. Parts of the rail line have been washed away, in a town a few miles north the storm surge moved some NJ Transit rail cars from the tracks onto the NJ turnpike.
Several streets flooded (lucky me , I live on top of a hill – makes for rough winds, but keeps me dry) making my section of town more like an island, a couple of house fires due to gas leaks; trees were down on almost every street (hence the reason it took me a couple of days to bug out – I could not get beyond a couple of miles, and certainly could not make it to the interstate). Many of the condos by the water front (both bayside and riverside) are flooded quite seriously. The list of damages goes on and on.
My freezer and ‘frig were stocked with as much ice as I could make and fit in before the storm, so food, even some fresh food, was not a problem. But, I couldn’t use my backpacking sterno stove as I didn’t want to burn it indoors and the wind was still too strong outside. That sucked.
Funny, when I went out yesterday (walked to the nearby shopping mall) the supermarket was open running on generators and packed with people. All the other stores were closed except the local liquor store which was open! Long lines at gas stations (I filled up last Saturday – so, I don’t need to do that) with several cops “keeping the peace” at each one. Something about the booze being so readily available and the long gas lines with threats of violence is not a good combination! Traffic lights were not working until I got off the interstate about 70 miles inland.
Given how bad things are further south on the barrier islands I feel quite lucky. I was well-prepared and “weathered” this storm okay. However, despite my careful preparations, after sleeping in a 55 degree bedroom for a couple of nights I decided to bug out and am now safely in a neighboring state 2 hours away. (oh, the blessings of a nice warm shower!)
On a political note, I have noticed that the news media is saying that this storm is helping Obama as it shows how much of a leader he is! WTF? I guess they really expected him to go play golf or something. They are also claiming that it shows how much he is willing to work with Republicans as Governor Chris Christie (the guy with an “R” after his name) was praising him. Seriously, what did they expect Christie to do – call him names? Christie knows that he needs to play nice or Obama will not help. Wow, the news media will spin anything and everything into gold for their chosen one!
Here’s hoping everyone else is safe, warm, and dry!