Hurricane Sandy: We’re doooooomed!

Update: Good news, bad news.  Thanks to reader DM, I was able to locate a plumbing supply store that is selling generators.  They are making a trip to another state to pick them up on Monday.  So, I reserved one.  The guy was nice enough to tell me how to check my sump pump so I should be prepared for Sandy.

The bad news is that the generator is going to cost me about $900 ($840.00 + 7% Sales tax) and will probably only be single use, not to say that I am not extremely grateful for a generator at all.  I am. And since all of the smaller generators in NJ are sold out, this is my next best option. But it’s a lot of money for me at a time when I can least afford it.  So, I’m tempted to put a donate button up for this and gently nudge people for a small contribution.  Recommended donation would be $10.30 for the date of Sandy’s landfall.  Does this sound unreasonable or greedy?

Here is the donation button for my “Save the Basement” fund:

Thank you for helping me weather Sandy!

********************************************

So, it looks like I am right in Hurricane Sandy’s strike zone.  See picture below:

See where that first “S” is on shore?  (Since I first posted this, the S has moved and now my sister is going to get slammed.  Now that I look at the new map, I’m even more concerned because it looks like we’ll still have hurricane strength conditions well past landfall.) I live slightly to the right of that “S”, conveniently located between Philadelphia and New York.  Isn’t that cool?

No, it is not cool.  I lived through Irene last year.  Or, should I say, the basement lived through Irene last year.  The power went out and I was ankle deep in water at 6am.  Not fun, not fun at all.  It’s the only time in 12 years that I have ever had water in my basement.  Stupidly, I thought, it could never happen again.  What are the chances that there will be another Irene type storm two years in a row?  The basement is normally bone dry, I have two sump pumps.  I laughed at nature and, put off by the price gouging on generators and battery back up sump pumps and my own unemployment, I did not buy any additional prophylactic water removal systems.

More after the jump…