Last Year a Snowstorm, This Year a Hurricane? Really?

[russ_watters]

Final NHC advisory: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT3+shtml/300250.shtml

 

[Astronuc]

Flooding in parts of NY City.
http://instagram.com/p/RY57HLNzpI/?fb_action_ids=10151215240594507

Cars under water on Avenue C & 14th Street in #NYC.

Transformer short - http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2012/10/30/12/52/transformer-explosion-filmed-in-manhattan

The crane on top of a building in NYC. The moment is buckled was recorded on video.
http://video.au.msn.com/watch/video/9raw-crane-buckles-on-ny-skyscraper/x36weqt


http://news.yahoo.com/superstorm-sandy-slams-atlantic-coast-sends-surge-seawater-041024607.html

. . . The sea surged a record of nearly 13 feet (4 metres) at the foot of Manhattan, flooding the financial district and subway tunnels.

The 10 deaths were in New Jersey, New York, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Connecticut. Police in Toronto said a woman was killed by a falling sign as high winds closed in on Canada's largest city.

As it made its way toward land, it converged with a cold-weather system that turned into a fearsome superstorm, a monstrous hybrid consisting not only of rain and high wind but of snow. Forecasters warned of 20-foot (6-meter) waves bashing into the Chicago lakefront and up to 3 feet (0.9 metres) of snow in West Virginia.

Storm damage was projected at $10 billion to $20 billion, meaning it could prove to be one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history.

. . . .

It appears the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel is flooded. Good thing the authorities closed it. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50134146n

CBS News Report - http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50134153n
Heavy snows in the Appalacian mountains.

A replica of the HMS Bounty sunk in the storm. Weren't the crew watching out for the storm?!

 

[Borek]

Google Earth shows two eyes for Sandy now, one of them 35 miles from Jimmy's place (I know location of Jimmy's house only approximately, so I can be a mile or two off).

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Just an update. Jimmy just called, and they are doing fine. Lots of power outages in NJ, but it seems like everything is fine there.

Thanks turbo. Last night at 5pm, a tree came down on my neighbor's yard and took out the power for a couple dozen families in my immediate vicinity. By itself, it wouldn't be a problem, but there are 1.2 million customers of my electric company without power so I can't say when things will get back to normal. The river did not overflow its banks and my basement is bone dry. There were strong winds when I went to sleep last night, but not now at 5 in the morning. A light rain is falling. I am in the parking lot of the hospital stealing their wifi. Borek is right, at closest approach, the eye passed just about 35 miles south of us.

 

[turbo]

Duke needs a long (pooping) walk today. My wife took him out briefly this morning, but the rain was heavy. I guess we have to put on our raincoats...

 

[russ_watters]

Though the track of the storm was amazingly accurate five days in advance, it was a major miss on rainfall predictions for me. Saturday night they were predicting 6-12 inches, Sunday they dropped it to 5-10, and we ended up with just 2. It looked, during the day, like the extratropical transition sucked all the moisture out to the east prior to landfall. It socked Delaware and DC and a little bit of south NJ, but that was it.

There are a lot of power outages from the wind, but no major damage in my area. At least I'll have an easy commute again, with all schools and the entire city of Philadelphia still shut down.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Glad to see people are still posting. So far it seems my PA family is without power, but running on generators and still able to update through facebook and such.

 

[Borek]

Of those in the area Gale has not posted yet.

 

[dkotschessaa]

Power outages seem to be pretty widespread, and damages/injuries/worse not so much. So I am comfortable in assuming most of the "not-heard-froms" are due to power. Or they are still sleeping...

 

[Astronuc]

Superstorm Sandy flooded parts of the New York City subway system, rail yards and bus depots, creating what officials are calling the biggest disaster of its 108 years in existence.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/abc-blogs/sandy-hits-ny-subway-system-hard-083550815--abc-news-topstories.html

NEW YORK (AP) — A huge fire has destroyed at least 50 homes in a flooded neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens.

More than 190 firefighters were trying to contain the blaze in the Breezy Point section and two people have suffered minor injuries, a fire department spokesman said.

. . . .

http://news.yahoo.com/least-50-flooded-houses-destroyed-nyc-fire-085028999.html

Authorities in NYCity were concerned about a 12 ft tide+surge, but the tide+surge was 14 ft.

 

[D H]

The number without power is now 7.6 million, and the storm isn't done yet. With that many without power over such an huge area, some of our members won't be back online for a week or more. Restoring power to housing is the lowest priority. Essential services such as hospitals, police stations, fire stations, and transportation come first, then big industry, then small business, and finally houses.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

This should give you an idea of the destruction to my property. Imagine if that branch had been the whole tree and that the tree were larger than it is and that it were closer to my house than it is. Oh the humanity. Your generous contributions to the Jimmy Emergency Relief Fund will enable a South Jersey family, chosen at random, to enjoy a hearty gourmet meal at a 5 star restaurant.

This pile of sticks is all that's left our our once happy one-story brick ranch.

Here's the situation about 100 yards from my house.

 

[D H]

That tree has way too many branches, and this is probably one reason why there are so many outages from this storm. The trees in the northeast haven't been trimmed to mitigate wind damage. There's a good-sized cottage industry in tree trimming in hurricane-prone areas. People charge to climb up trees to trim excess branches. The idea is to let the wind blow through the trees instead of blowing the trees over.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

That tree has way too many branches.

What's more, if you look at the base, although the tree looked fine from the outside, inside it was completely rotted away.

 

[Dembadon]

Of those in the area Gale has not posted yet.

Hopefully she's okay. However, her latest activity was last night around 10PM, so I'm guessing she was somewhere safe with power, or she logged in from a phone with web capabilities.

 

[Jack21222]

After Irene, my parents' house in Baltimore lost power for 7 days. This time, they kept power. Looks like the brunt of this storm hit a bit further north this time. Irene spared New York City for the most part, while Sandy gave the area a nice black eye.

 

[Astronuc]

REUTERS - Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit eastern United States, flooded servers of Datagram Inc in New York City, bringing down several media websites it hosts, including Huffington Post and Gawker.

"We are continuing to battle flooding and fiber outages in downtown New York and Connecticut," a notice posted on Datagram's website said. http://r.reuters.com/wat63t

"Verizon and other carriers in the area are down as well. Generators are unable to pump fuel due to the flooding in the basements," Datagram said.

New York-based Datagram offers server-hosting services, network and Web application support, and database administration.

. . . .

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sandy-takes-down-huffington-post-121526237.html

That's why emergency equipment should not be in a basement below water level - that is sea or river level + worst expected flood + some extra margin. Underground service is fine - until it get's flooded.

 

[Gale]

Hopefully she's okay. However, her latest activity was last night around 10PM, so I'm guessing she was somewhere safe with power, or she logged in from a phone with web capabilities.

I'm good guys. Power went out only briefly here and the damage around me isn't too bad. Down by the water is a bit of a mess, but downtown is way worse. Did you see the images of battery park? That was crazy to me.

 

[Gale]

Here are a few of photos from today. I live in uptown NYC which is basically up on a hill so it wasn't too terrible, and definitely less flooding than downtown. Mostly lots of trees everywhere. I saw a few buildings with some damaged roofs but the photos didn't turn out well. Hope everyone else is doing alright too!

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/223622_10100986423186912_187803876_n.jpg
This is near Broadway and 100th st I think. Saw a lot of tree branches on top of cars today...

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/525602_10100986423940402_516311381_n.jpg
Not a very exciting photo, but subway could be closed for the rest of the week. Bridges and tunnels are closed too, so I'm pretty much stuck on the island.

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/523450_10100986424948382_1501167261_n.jpg
Riverside park a couple blocks from my house. The park was closed for the storm so no one got hurt there, but the whole place was pretty much a mess.

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc6/9256_10100986425741792_1543551167_n.jpg
Also Riverside Park. Many places had trees removed already and there were just gaping holes left behind.. Especially where the trees fell across the road.

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/546811_10100986427647972_900608391_n.jpg
No idea what that is, but I guess it blew up from the river?

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/544952_10100986431076102_681753850_n.jpg
That's Henry Hudson highway. I guess during the surge it was probably covered with water. It was still closed off when I was walking today.

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/644044_10100986434189862_139794741_n.jpg
That's right along the highway again. You can see how the water washed away some of the ground. I can't imagine how bad it is downtown.

 

[SixNein]

Well - I'm on the bad side of that storm.

Either we'll get a lot of snow followed by rain, or we get a lot of rain. Either way, we get significant flooding.

As long as we have electricity, we'll stay dry. Otherwise, my basement will become an indoor pool.

I'm on the cold wet side. Would have liked the snow =/

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Power is still out. The tree that fell on the power line has been cut down, but power has not been restored. Luckily, one of the branches of the fallen tree got caught in a crotch of another tree and so it didn't fall all the way to the ground. If it had, it would surely have snapped the power lines. I suffered no damage on my property. However, on the block next to mine 7 trees fell and two more were stripped of most of their branches. Two of the trees fell on houses causing major damage to their roofs. In other locations within 200 yards of my house, another tree and a major branch came down. The river that snakes through town did not overflow its banks, the high point so far is three feet below the edge. I expect it to continue to rise, but not to overflow. My basement stayed dry.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

Here it is Friday and still no power. New York is a hell of a town. The Bronx is up, but the Battery's down.

 

[D H]

Here it is Friday and still no power.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if next Friday you report "Here it is Friday yet again and still no power." We were without power for over six days thanks to Hurricane Ike. Ike and Sandy resulted in similar numbers of people losing power, but with Ike the greatest damage was concentrated in a few counties in Texas. The damage from Sandy is extremely widespread. The widespread nature of that damage will make logistics much more difficult. It's going to take quite some time to get power back up for everyone who lost it.

You are at the bottom of the pecking order unless you're lucky and happen to live in the same subgrid as a hospital, fire station, police station, or major industry. Hospitals, fire stations, and police stations get top priority because the first thing that has to be done after a major storm is to make things safe. The next priority is to get the economy rolling again. Major industry and downtowns comes first, then other concentrated work areas, shopping areas and gas stations, and then little businesses. The lowest priority: Residential housing. Don't get your hopes up for a quick recovery. Count your blessings if it is quick; less than a week is quick.

It takes a lot of people to cut down all the trees that caused the damage, a lot more to restore the power lines once the trees are cleared. You don't have enough such people on the Eastern seaboard. They'll instead have come in from all parts of the country to help out. It takes a bit of time to get all those people on board. Just in our neighborhood, we had tree cutting crews hauled in from Tennessee and Minnesota working on clearing the damage, power crews from California and North Carolina working on restoring power.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I wouldn't be at all surprised if next Friday you report "Here it is Friday yet again and still no power."

When I called PSE&G, they said that they were aware of our situation and a team would be sent out to assess the situation. The estimated time of arrival of the assessment team is as you say, Friday next week. We are way down on the priority list. Not only are we residential, but only about 20 homes lost power due to 'our' tree so there is little bang for the buck fixing it.

 

[turbo]

Brief outages, and days of rain (finally, it looks dry so far, today). We're OK. Power companies from Maine are shipping personnel to CT, NY, etc to help with the clean-up. Maine is rural and heavily wooded, so there is no lack of talent headed south. Chain saws, pole saws, de-limbers, etc, with bucket trucks. All headed south.

 

[lisab]

When I called PSE&G, they said that they were aware of our situation and a team would be sent out to assess the situation. The estimated time of arrival of the assessment team is as you say, Friday next week. We are way down on the priority list. Not only are we residential, but only about 20 homes lost power due to 'our' tree so there is little bang for the buck fixing it.

Oh noes! Sorry to hear it, Jimmy. I've been in that situation before, no power for 6 days !

 

[D H]

Is this the October surprise for this election?

It's looking like this may well have been the October surprise. O'bama has the luck o' the Irish. The 2008 economic collapse hit early and hard enough, and then kept on collapsing, making a victory for McCain all but impossible. Now in 2012, Hurricane Sandy hit just at the right time to give a boost to Obama.

Hurricane Sandy has topped Romney v. Obama in the news for these last few critical days before the election. Since Sandy hit just a week before the election, people who are still without power on election day aren't quite so prone to take it out on the powers that be in the election as they would have been had it hit a week earlier. Sandy has upstaged Romney, showing the need for a strong federal government with respect to emergencies. Maybe not a big federal government, but not a "turn everything over to the states" federal government, either. There's no way that New Jersey or New York could handle the extreme damage to those states without federal assistance. Romney's past words on FEMA don't help his cause.

Polls in Ohio (which just missed the brunt of Sandy) are moving even further from Romney, and Florida (which has far too much experience with hurricanes) are moving in the direction of Obama (but still training Romney). One last note: The President's approval rating has now moved into positive territory.

 

[Redbelly98]

My house and workplace are still without power in central New Jersey, but there are neighborhoods in town that do have power which makes me hopeful we'll get electricity back soon.

In the meantime, we have hot water, a kerosene heater, and can light our gas stovetop. Also have friends nearby with electricity and internet, which is where I am right now. Our local grocer has generators and has been open for business.

Lots of gas/petrol stations are shut down and there are huge lines of cars waiting to buy gas. My wife and I filled our cars last Friday in preperation.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

My neighbor had graciously offered to lend me his generator. I have a coupon for a free night in a hotel so tomorrow and Sunday we will be in a warm place. But if we don't have power by Monday, I'm going to take him up on the offer.

 

[Redbelly98]

Our power came back on about an hour ago, almost exactly 4 days after it first went out. My fingers are crossed -- we and others have had power come back earlier in the week only for it to go out again.

It has been real nice to have the kerosene heater that my wife had bought well over 10 years ago for heat, and the power inverter I bought last year to provide real lighting (versus dim candlelight) to read by at night.

Update: my wife just read a note that a power transformer went out somewhere in town, so some people who had it are now out again.