More Sandy images from the Princeton area

Here are a couple of videos that show how bad the storm damage was in Princeton.  The first one shows Witherspoon Street, which is one of the main streets in Princeton.  The second shows the area around Princeton, including some of the roads I drive on.  This was pretty typical of the damage around my town as well.  There are many downed trees blocking the road, and many downed power lines.  Roads through the Princeton area were detoured for a couple of weeks and as of last week, there were still traffic signals that weren’t working in parts of Princeton and Lawrenceville.

First video: Witherspoon Street, Princeton

Second video: Roads around Princeton.

Now, I know that many people are playing the world’s smallest violin for Princeton and somehow, we’re supposed to feel collective guilt for all the suffering that happened in New Orleans after Katrina because… because… fuck if I know.  I guess I should just forget all of the collection stations in the local shopping center parking lots to send stuff to NOLA.  Yeah, we’re just insensitive jerks with no sense of responsibility or empathy.  {{rolling eyes}}  And because we didn’t all drown, we should not ask for any money from the Feds, not even the 40 cents for every tax dollar we send to Washington that we don’t get back.

No, we didn’t all drown, but about 100 people in NY and NJ did in the shore areas and there were enough people hit by falling trees.  This was not just a severe thunderstorm.  NOLA was suffering on a personal scale as well as a property scale.  On the other hand, it’s not like the gulf coast isn’t used to hurricanes.  There’s even a famous NOLA drink named after them.  What these videos are showing is the unprecedented nature of this disaster on places that were not on the shore.  We live about 40 miles inland.  And while our area isn’t going to suffer the devastating economic losses associated with the shore, it’s not nothing here.  Pay attention to the second video, especially to the tree canopy overhead.  That’s what I’m worried about.  They’ve cleared the obstructions and repaired the power lines but some of those trees up there are still dangerous, just like some of the trees in Central Park are dangerous.  They’re compromised.  We’re going to find out just how compromised they are in the coming months.

This final video is pretty good.  It’s from a guy who has a house on Ortley Beach at the shore.  Note that these houses are not super swank millionaire “cottages”.  They’re pretty typical of well-established shore towns.  Some of the houses have been there for almost 100 years.