Anyone going to get hit by the big storm??

[Mark D]

I manage a couple floors of office space for my company at 1065 AOA and some other space in times sq.. Called down there yesterday and they tell me that there is power in the buildings, but that verizon wires are a mess. No internet or phone makes the office useless, but lots of staff are showing up to charge their laptops and cell phones.

I've got some friends on LI that lost a brand new Infinity 4x4 to a 24" dia oak tree. Ground is so saturated trees have nothing to hold onto.

Thankfully our power at home was restored late last night in central Mass.

[40P10touring sedan]

Seems UPS is now up and running around the north east, just got an email that my new carpet is being shipped from new jersey....wonder if it's dry...the carpet, that is...

Glad to hear folks damage was low key...storms like that can be a real mess!

[Plymouthy Adams]

its a mess because the area was in no way prepared nor was this a reoccurring event..just like if a big snow should hit the south..major catrastrophe...common, no...probably can happen, you getcha...

[Dan Hiebert]

My father and mother in-law and one brother-in-law live in South Amboy, they aren't expected to have power back until at least the 7th in that area. Although they are on high ground, the grid around the Raritan River and Bay got smacked pretty hard, and there was one more high tide last night that the power company had to let happen before they could get to work. The other brother-in-law lives in Bradley Beach, a couple blocks off the ocean. He hasn't been able to get back to his house yet to assess damage.

According to FEMA reporting, 49% of people have their power back. But that other 51% is a little over 4 million people still without power.

I'm making a run into NJ this afternoon with some generators. Although my father-in-law is a "medical priority", there are still none available. My mother-in-law refuses to leave, and he won't leave without her, otherwise the trip would be to snatch them up and bring them back here for the duration. Darn stubborn old people

[JerseyHarold]

We lost power about 8:30 Monday night and got it back about a half hour ago. we were pretty lucky and only lost some roof shingles and one gable vent (brittle plastic) blew out (which we fixed with plexiglass for the time being). We have pipe gas so could cook and take hot showers.

My office is in Keasbey (right near Dan Hiebert's in-laws) and the building still doesn't have internet (it took till yesterday for light and water) so the VP said to stay home until Monday. Now that i have power again, I'll answer as many emails as i can for the afternoon.

[1940plymouth]

We lost our power about 4:30pm Monday afternoon, finally came back on at 1pm this afternoon. No damage to our house, but lots of damage here in town and surrounding area to houses and vehicles.

[40P10touring sedan]

Flooding sucks...I know! Back in 96 Illinois had a huge amount of rain dump on us here in a very short time...18" as I recall. I'm 6'4"/36" inseem and in the middle of the street it was up to my privates...lost my new car and most of everything I owned - we do survive, eventually.

I hope the process back to a normal life goes quickly for all....and maybe FEMA will be more helpful to those folks there than they seemed to be for me then....

[Dan Hiebert]

Power returned to the In-law's area Monday night, but cut back out again Tuesday morning. That's to be expected as these areas come on line - when you flip the switch, places that had hidden damage show up, so the power has to be cut again to fix it. It's since come back on. Family is fortunate that all they lost was a few shingles, electricity, and grub in the fridge. The Bro-in-law in Bradley Beach didn't get washed away, either.

The NY side turned a lot of "unnecessary" power off before the storm hit, the NJ side did not, which damaged a lot of infrastructure, one of the ConEd plants basically self-destructed.

Given the modern penchant for "smaller is better", the supplies of small batteries were basically exhausted. One place only had D-cell batteries left - lots of them. Worked out for us because I brought a few "obsolete" D-cell Maglight and Streamlight flashlights along that I had bought for work many years ago, and couldn't bring myself to get rid of. That, and my Father-in-law has a clunky old D-cell radio that he refused to get rid of way back when. So we had an almost limitless supply of batteries for them.

They're saying the hardest hit places, like the south Jersey shore, won't have power or utilities for maybe six months. We bought some extra generators on the way, and left ours there because of the intermittent outages that will be occurring. The utilities crews advise that folks should keep generators and fuel on stand-by for another month or so. Hopefully Mother Nature will be kind to western New York until we can get our generator back, can't afford to get a replacement for a while, we had to dip into "old car money" to help out - ce la vie.

I helped out at a Red Cross relief center for a few hours, (didn't have anything better to do other than baby-sit a generator), and got to talk to a lot of the recovery crews when they had the chance to come by for a break. Things are taking longer than anticipated because a lot of the damage was done by seawater. They can dry the stuff out, but then they have to take everything apart to clean out the corrosion. I guess they didn't expect the corrosion to set in that quick.

Lines at the gas pumps were just as the media has been reporting, although "tensions" seem to be easing (that may not be readily apparent to people that aren't from the NY/NJ area, given the stereotypical - - prevailing attitude). Along with the rationing in NJ they have police at every station. They move generators from station to station to ease the problem, with only one or two stations allowed to open up at a time in some areas until full power is restored, because there are only so many cops to go around. They aren't allowing any stations to open without police present.

I was "accosted" by the po-po last trip to the pumps because of the NY plates on our vehicle. They (and probably everyone in line) wanted to know why a NY car was in their line. Once I explained that we were there from Buffalo to help family they let us (insisted, actually) fill up the tank rather than limit us to the 10-gallon ration. I've never figured that out, the citizenry around there can be such curmudgeons, yet they turn around and do nice things like that. That let us get home without having to stop on the return trip. NJ folks are going as far as Binghampton, NY to get gas and supplies, everything between the Poconos and there was starting to dry up.

9 PM curfew is in effect, businesses have to be closed by 6 PM, and the gas stations have to be closed by 4:30 PM. You go out after 9 PM, your getting stopped, and you'd better have a good reason to be out. That's helping to keep the looting down, but its still happening in places.

But - the longest line was at the one liquor store on Ernston Rd. in Parlin that got a generator hooked up.

Rather than contribute to the chaos, I didn't get out much to see what had been affected. The vast majority of damage is, of course, along the low lying areas adjacent to the ocean, bays, and rivers - that happen to have the most industrial infrastructure, which has the big impact on restoring power.

Long and difficult road to recovery, but the way I look at it, the infrastucture that is present in NY and NJ is pretty immense in the first place, what wasn't damaged will quickly move in and help the rest recover, and the will of those people to overcome anything will win out.

Apologies for the long post, but I imagine you'uns are curious, and maybe too polite to ask .

[Young Ed]

Power returned to the In-law's area Monday night, but cut back out again Tuesday morning. That's to be expected as these areas come on line - when you flip the switch, places that had hidden damage show up, so the power has to be cut again to fix it. It's since come back on.

Thanks for the update. You are very right about how the power works. If possible I'd have them keep the generator longer than that. Minneapolis got his by a tornado the same day as Joplin. They got their power fixed in 3-4 days but it went out frequently again for probably the next 6-9 months. We surmised they fixed it in such a hurry that stuff was done poorly or overlooked and it took that long for all the bugs to get worked out it.

[Niel Hoback]

Thanks for the update, buried in there is good news. I am sure the residents of New Jersy are grateful for your help.

[Don Coatney]

Apologies for the long post, but I imagine you'uns are curious, and maybe too polite to ask .

No need to make ammends for a long post. I never understand why anyone needs to make such apologies. I do not recall anyone making apologies for a short posting:eek: Great information and thanks for posting.