Hurricane Sandy

[islander238]

Good luck to you guys on the east coast. I hope you and your families stay safe. Looks pretty bad.

[gtblum]

I'm taking this a little more seriously than I usually do when the media starts in with their "Chicken Little" storm reports, but I'm not running out to clear the shelves of any grocery stores.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the wind gets here and starts twisting around on this lake. Maybe nothing. They don't seem too concerned with that, yet.

One thing for sure. It's going to be expensive for all of us.

[allseason]

Thanks Brent. We'll manage I'm sure. Currently medium to heavy rain and mild winds as of 1:45 pm in Northeast NJ.

[Inspectorjoe]

My power went out more than two hours ago and I don't expect to get it back. Here in eastern PA, we haven't even gotten the high winds yet. I have 15 gallons of gas for the generator and I can siphon 30 gallons out of the cars if necessary.

My neighbor has a wife on oxygen. He wasn't able to get a generator. A 100' extension cord run from my generator just made it into his door. Except for the range and dryer, my whole house has power. My neighbor at least has enough for the essentials.

[Rob Amaral]

Primary up the street cooking through a maple tree... dang.. "Fiyah'

[John Kogel]

We probably all heard this on the news. The sailing ship HMS Bounty has gone aground, sunk, and one sailor has drowned, one still missing. What in the world were they doing out there?

Good luck to everyone out there and do be careful with generators and heaters.

[John Dirks Jr]

A bunch of rain here with some moderate wind gusts. Supposedly the worst part is here now. For my location, it's turning out to be milder than expected. No power outage at my house thus far. Probably more windy to the north of me. Lots of rain here in central MD though.

[kurt]

They left a week ago, bound for St. Petersburg, FL. Big old square rigged tub, doesn't go to weather so well, they probably averaged about 2 knots on a rhumb line.

They thought they'd go around the storm. Big mistake. Can't outrun this storm in an old tub.

[davidlord]

Yea that tub was here in St Augustine a while back. Did some damage to the city marina if I remember correctly.

[Jim Morrison]

A little over 7 hours without power here. Temps are mild so it's really just an inconvenience. Not a ton Of rain , but some serious gusts a while back. All told, a near miss, I'd say.

[kurt]

Supposedly, we're in for getting backhanded by Sandy. Forecasts of 20'+ waves marching down the full length of Lake Michigan; that'll put them over the wall and Lakeshore Dr., and into downtown.

Should be interesting.

[Rob Amaral]

Atta boy Joe! Hang in there

My power went out more than two hours ago and I don't expect to get it back. Here in eastern PA, we haven't even gotten the high winds yet. I have 15 gallons of gas for the generator and I can siphon 30 gallons out of the cars if necessary.

My neighbor has a wife on oxygen. He wasn't able to get a generator. A 100' extension cord run from my generator just made it into his door. Except for the range and dryer, my whole house has power. My neighbor at least has enough for the essentials.

[Rob Amaral]

I think Hurricane Bob may have been worse Jim...I did not lose power (yet) but an NSTAR primary has been burning in a tree all nite...NSTAR is on it..(I should say 'under it') An NSTAR employee has been sitting out there since it occurred yesterday around 2PM.

A little over 7 hours without power here. Temps are mild so it's really just an inconvenience. Not a ton Of rain , but some serious gusts a while back. All told, a near miss, I'd say.

[Scottpat]

Thoughts are with everyone that is in the path of the storm. Having gone through Katrina in MS, I can tell you first hand that your friends and neighbors will be your best source of support, next is the Red Cross and your local community. Get all of the water you can store along with canned food, crackers etc... You might have water now, but it could become undrinkable if they find that flood water got into the system when the pumps failed during a power outage.

Don't forget simple matches or lighters to light your gas stove or camping stove. Those electric igniters do not work so well without power...

It will get better....

[ghentjr]

Took the grandkids to visit the Bounty a few weeks back. One of the highlights of their visit was a discussion about their survival gear and how the suits would help protect them. Too bad they had to be used. Really nice bunch of young people as crew.

Strong wind took down a tree in my front yard about 50' tall. It fell on my SEC and my telephone wire. But I still had power and cable/internet. The force pulled the mast off the house without disconnecting any wires. About an hour later we (the whole town) lost power and we still are on generator. Most of the town took severe hits with tree damage and wires down. My big problem is a 30 year old cast iron boiler that starts to leak when it is fully shut down as it was last night. I guess I have to set the alarm and run the generator every 4 hours to keep the boiler warm enough not to leak.

I have good friends that got their waterfront house wiped out last year to the tune of 175k and 4 months to repair. Guess what? Last nights high tides seem to have caused significant damage to their foundation. Basement full of mud. They would be happy to sell if anyone is interested.

[hausdok]

Hi John,

I know you are in both CT and FL. What county are you in in CT?

I grew up in that corner of the country and I can't think of one that hit that corner of the world that hard since the 1955 one that took out the dam in my home town, flooded the town and eliminated the lake, which had been a major tourist draw, forever. I was a 4-year old tyke then. We'd been up in Nova Scotia visiting my grandparents and my father drove us back in the middle of that storm. We arrived the day after the lake had burst and arrived in Amenia to find the streets submerged. I still remember the drive up Mechanic Street. The road was completely submerged and there was water up higher than the porches of the houses along that street. My older sister was screaming when the water came in through the bottom of the doors and flooded the floor of my Dads '48 Ford Woody. I was high and dry in the cargo area in the back.

That flood caused pretty widespread devastation to the whole region that year but my father told me later that there were two major hurricanes that summer and it was the double-whammy that really did the damage. Folks were still cleaning up from the one when the second hit.

Our home didn't get hit. We lived in an apartment well above ground level at the time; but the folks below us got flooded out. I didn't realize until years later that my father had cooked his engine driving through all that water. Shortly after that, he pulled the car into Miller Motors down the street and my brother and I spent the day playing in the car as he pulled the engine and replaced it with another. Flathead V8 - still remember how fascinated I was with the shape of the engine.

Hope all of our TIJ friends are safe and well today. If any of us can do anything for you, please give a shout.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[John Kogel]

Good story, Mike. I guess your Dad got water in the oil pan.

My dad had a couple of '53 Fords and in the 60's, it was already hard to find a good flathead V8 to rebuild. Hotrodders and stock car racers used them all up.

A warning to people driving flooded streets. If you go in over the axles, you can easily get water in a differential. The water froths up the oil, and bearings and gears go to pieces real quick when that happens.

[Tom Raymond]

So ford, but only in a Jeep.

[asihi]

The devastation that this storm has caused in unimaginable. Take a look at some of these pictures.

Tony

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -over.html

[Greg Booth]

.........here in the middle of the finger lakes area, we lost power for 12 hours, but suffered very little damage - thankfully.......Greg.

[allseason]

I'm still without power, since Monday 10 PM

[Jim Morrison]

We were lucky. Went a little over 24 hours without power, but didn't even lose any food. The yard's a mess, but not a scratch on the house or family. My heart goes out to anyone who really suffered from the storm. My thanks go out to the first responders and utility workers (the guys who no one ever asks if they lost power of suffered damage from the storm).

[hausdok]

My thanks go out to the first responders and utility workers (the guys who no one ever asks if they lost power of suffered damage from the storm).

That's a really good point, Jimmy. They were saying on the news last night that the neighborhood where those 100+ homes burned down was a blue collar neighborhood heavily populated by cops and firemen.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[ghentjr]

Hi John,

I know you are in both CT and FL. What county are you in in CT?

I grew up in that corner of the country and I can't think of one that hit that corner of the world that hard since the 1955 one that took out the dam in my home town, flooded the town and eliminated the lake, which had been a major tourist draw, forever. I was a 4-year old tyke then. We'd been up in Nova Scotia visiting my grandparents and my father drove us back in the middle of that storm. We arrived the day after the lake had burst and arrived in Amenia to find the streets submerged. I still remember the drive up Mechanic Street. The road was completely submerged and there was water up higher than the porches of the houses along that street. My older sister was screaming when the water came in through the bottom of the doors and flooded the floor of my Dads '48 Ford Woody. I was high and dry in the cargo area in the back.

That flood caused pretty widespread devastation to the whole region that year but my father told me later that there were two major hurricanes that summer and it was the double-whammy that really did the damage. Folks were still cleaning up from the one when the second hit.

Our home didn't get hit. We lived in an apartment well above ground level at the time; but the folks below us got flooded out. I didn't realize until years later that my father had cooked his engine driving through all that water. Shortly after that, he pulled the car into Miller Motors down the street and my brother and I spent the day playing in the car as he pulled the engine and replaced it with another. Flathead V8 - still remember how fascinated I was with the shape of the engine.

Hope all of our TIJ friends are safe and well today. If any of us can do anything for you, please give a shout.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

No sooner than my sending the email you replied to we lost our services. We just this hour got our phone and internet back but I am still on generator. In fact, went out and bought a bigger one as the old one only ran for three hours without a refill. Home Depot has been supplying a few hundred every other day.

I am in Fairfield county and we were hit pretty bad. Trees did most of the damage inland and the higher than normal tide surges did it to the shoreline. I am hoping to get to Florida for a few weeks but if I don't get power back soon I will call it off.

As to the 1955 storm I was in Civil Air Patrol as well as being a volunteer fireman. Spent days out assisting and cleaning up. The Naugatuck river flooded many of the towns it flowed through and there were entire factories undermined and collapsed. The the thing that impressed me most was a telephone pole with a single piece of straw driven through it. The picture of that pole made the national magazines.

I guess we have no control over mother nature.

[Bill Kibbel]

Power has finally been restored after 7 days, almost to the minute. A hard-working crew from Shelby, NC finally got the wire back up through the forest to the last few homes in a remote area. Last year at this exact same time, we were without power for almost 6 days.

Just prior to the storm I was booked through November 19th. 6 appointments postponed. 3 of those had to cancel since they can't wait. I only did one inspection last week.