This is a post for all our friends who are hunkered down in their dark and flickering houses tonight. We are thinking of you and wishing we were there to keep your spirits up.
Picture Riverdaughter & Brooke, headlamps strapped to their heads, listening to WNYC and working puzzles with Will Shortz while the house shakes, rattles and rolls with the wind.
Scenes like this are happening up and down the coast tonight.
Let’s hope that power (through wire, battery or generator) holds, roofs stay where roofs are meant to be, that everyone we know made it home safely before this dastardly storm swept through and that things don’t look as bad as we fear they might in the morning.
This is a post for sharing our stories.
Here’s a link to WNYC’s Special Hurricane Sandy Coverage — they’re taking calls from all over the region.
Filed under: General | Tagged: headlamp flashlights, hurricane, Sandy, Storm, Will Shortz |
The Confluence 
I don’t like the way the wind sounds one little bit, and neither does my wife nor my dog (DC). White knuckling it….
Scott — I somehow forgot about the dogs (how, I don’t know — you should see the Eskie sleeping on my foot right now) … this must be driving the poor things crazy!!
BREAKING: Coney Island Hospital Is On Fire
by Robert Fernandez on Oct 29th, 2012
BREAKING NEWS: 10:21 PM This just over the radio – report of main building of Coney Island Hospital is on fire. Units are trying to respond but are reporting that streets surrounding the hospital are flooded and un-passable.
EDIT: 10:31 PM. FDNY is reporting that Coney Island Hosptial is surrounded by “three to four feet of water.”
EDIT: 10:33 PM. Reader James W is reporting that “Ocean Parkway from Ave W south as far as I can see, is flooded. There is a huge emergency response.”
EDIT: 10:41 PM. FDNY is reporting that they are unable to access Coney Island Hospital at this time. Dispatch responded with “no boats available.”
The artilcle’s been update. It was a car outside, now put out, not the hospital.
The Red Cross is seeking donations to help victims of Hurricane Sandy.
http://www.redcross.org/index.jsp
I hope you all stay safe!
djmm
There’s a picture on nakedcapitalism of a shark swimming in what I take to be someone’s front yard, just off the porch. Yves doesn’t guarantee authenticity, but it’s not impossible that some curious animal went with the flow, so to speak.
Or that a shark jumped the storm?
That’s a fake for this storm. The picture itself may be real, not photoshopped (don’t know), but it has nothing to do with this storm or the other ones where that same photo keeps popping up.
What other ones? First time I’ve seen it, myself. For me, whatever its origins, it sums up the blithe short sightedness of human habitation. We plant ourselves and our buildings without a thought to predictable hazard.
I haven’t heard from Riverdaughter or my sister in DC this morning. Please let us know when you hear from your family and I will do the same.
Watching the Weather Channel. … they just said that over 8 million are without power.
I’m here!
That was scary as shit. I thought the roof was going to come off. For comparison, I lived thru hurricane Charlie in 2004 on the coast in Naples, florida. This wind felt as strong as that to me. Some of the gusts were sustained.in retrospect, I think the national weather service and local authorities understated the.severity of the storm. The battle between Christie and the mayor of Atlantic city is the tell. Christie wanted everyone evacuated and was majorly pissed before the.storm. But there is no way to evacuate a population this big. It just isn’t possible to evacuate the state. Where we’re we going to go? And who wants a bunch of jerseyans camping in their communities asking if “you put the sowalt in the woooadah?”. We’re A types and irritating. Realistically, staying put and hunkering down was the only thing we could do. I think eh underplayed it to prevent panic except at the shore where people were ordered to leave. But Atlantic city’s population is like NOLAs. Poor, African American. Where are they going to go?
Amazingly, the only evidence that there was a storm at my house is the debris on ,y deck. We didn’t lose any shingles or gutters and the basement is dry. YES! The power is out but the gas stove works. The weather is mild but we,ll need a fire tonight. I don’t want to manually start the furnace. thank you all for the generator.
Christie said at his presser that NJ was hit the hardest and that the damage is unprecedented. We won’t believe it when we see it. To me this means that the boardwalks are substantially damaged or gone and that barrier islands are breached. This would be very serious. I’m listening to wnyc and reports are that the rail lines in NJ are damaged including a report that one of the rail lines was washed onto the NJ turnpike. Brooke doesn’t have school today. I wouldn’t be surprised if she didn’t have school tomorrow as well.
We will keep you updated as well as we can. Cell serive is sub-optimal although it has improved in the last hour. No wifi of course. Must find car charger to plug into 12 V battery charging port.
Later …
Cell service might be running on battery backup. In our neck of the woods, that tends to last about a day, so make all the calls you need right now while you have service. Also, go get another tank of gas if you don’t have one. Gas will be in short supply if the outage lasts more than a day.
Yes, I’ve lived thru these kinds of situations — numerous times.
The NJ boardwalks were taken out.
Glad to hear this!! What a night.
That’s the thing about “sustained winds.” They keep talking about sustained winds, but it’s the gusts that get you. I haven’t seen any report yet about how high the gusts were. All we know is that they were faster than the 80mph sustained!
RD, you are amazing. To go through this heart pounding experience and then translate it to the written word for those of us who aren’t, but are worried sick about you…it demonstrates such an ability to connect. I am happily applauding your dry basement 🙂 On the national media front, it’s being “reported”, for lack of a better word, that all the states impacted will now go to hand ballots and change voting venues and so forth, due to power outage issues. Here’s the thing…every community reeling from this is already planning its path, in that uniquely East Coast American way. My daughter and my friends are OK, thankfully.
RD:
Good to know you made it through. My thoughts and prayers were with you all.
We are with you…. keep safe !
Glad to see you this morn!
Glad to hear that you are ok RD.I was praying for you keep safe ! 🙂
So glad that you and Brooke are safe, as are my sister and niece in South Orange.
Did you see that eighty houses burned down in Queens?
Unbelievable.
That makes me feel guilty for whining about our power outage, last night in Cleveland. It lasted for eleven hours, so I’ll have to ditch the leftovers, cold cuts and dairy products.
Such a small price to pay compared to so many others.
Best wishes to all for a speedy return to normalcy.
Obama going over to Red Cross HQ intercut with Romney’s refusal to discuss or endorse FEMA looks bad for Romney.
I’m just saying: I already voted for Stein.
Those of us who cannot willnot vote for Obama need to be very clear on the pain we will have to accept all around us if Romney wins. Romney fully intends to finish the job Dubya started . . . featuring goals like exterminating FEMA once and for all, etc.
Third party candidates are getting votes this year. A lot of votes.. Entrenched Republicans and Democrats are united on keeping them from getting the electorate’s attention, The voting riggery this year, I make up, will probably be to diminish third party candidates’ impact.
That’s why I’m fretting so much about my possible/probable write in vote. I have no hope that my vote will matter but, I wouldn’t mind that it be noticed.
Sadly, Gary Johnson is the only 3rd Party option on my ballot and It would REALLY bother me to vote for him. Thus, the write in option.
The weird thing is that the Democrats couldn’t scrape up a candidate for Congress in my district.
So I don’t know. Maybe I’ll blow the whole thing off. If it doesn’t make a difference then what difference does it make?
Gary Johnson, to me, without any other choice, is nominally better than Obama or Romney. Which doesn’t make it less painful.
I go back and forth… it’s likely that as in 2008, I won’t know for sure until I get in the booth. I can’t imagine not voting at all.
Are there referrenda or initiatives on your state ballot this year? Are there local people of interest to vote for or people of distaste to vote against?
Oh, I couldn’t really skip it (in fact I spent much of last night dreaming that i was trying to pick up a vote-by-mail ballot) …. The State Legislative races are REALLY important her in Kansas. The Kansas Republicans are so over the top crazy you wouldn’t believe it. Except that the stuff they do actually makes headlines all over the country.
So. Yes, State Rep, State Senate, & State board of Ed.
Good choice. 🙂
RD, I’m to read you and Brooke are safe and there was no damage to your home. Trees became killers during the storm.
I have no idea why I said “I’m to read”
I meant to type I’m glad to read that you and Brooke are safe. 😳
Since power outages are inevitable having a long run time flashlight is a good idea.
Lowes has a 65 hour run time flashlight for under $5.00
http://www.instructables.com/id/Easy-Flashlight-Mod-Increases-Run-Time-36X/?allstep
I got mine in store. I also got one at Target.
More:
http://armageddononline.org/forums/threads/34318-Cheap-long-run-time-flashlights
Or go micro solar for under $50.00.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Uses-For-Dead-Car-Batteries-And-Sealed-Lead-Acid-B/?allstep
Emergency Led Lighting Made Ridiculously Simple:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Emergency-Led-Lighting-Made-Ridiculously-Simple/?allstep