Hurricane Sandy

[lincoln lass]

Good luck, keep your heads down and be safe. Thinking of you from this side of the pond.

[Andrew IIA]

Good luck, keep your heads down and be safe. Thinking of you from this side of the pond.

Thank you lincoln lass. Digging out, chainsawing, etc here on Long Island NY.

[Les Parker]

Our thoughts are with those in NJ.NY.CT, DE etc.

Here in VT we had a small amount of wind and rain, a few trees/branches down. Pretty lucky, really.

All the best to those with out power, drinking water etc.

[jac04]

We got lucky here in north central CT. Lots of wind, but only a few branches down in my yard. Lost power for 24 hours, but it could have been worse (just ask Andrew).

[Linus Tremaine]

The only thing that ever happens here is it gets foggy. I dont get to use my land rover for anything. I have a chainsaw that I used once, a winch I used once (to move a broken car) and sometimes I wish something interesting would happen. Of course, I dont want a tree to fall on my house or anything bad, but a few trees to cut up, some road washouts here and there.. a little adventure would be nice.

[JimCT]

No you do not

The kind of adventure you are talking about is not fun. Be thankful you are not a part of it.

The only thing that ever happens here is it gets foggy. I dont get to use my land rover for anything. I have a chainsaw that I used once, a winch I used once (to move a broken car) and sometimes I wish something interesting would happen. Of course, I dont want a tree to fall on my house or anything bad, but a few trees to cut up, some road washouts here and there.. a little adventure would be nice.

[lincoln lass]

The kind of adventure you are talking about is not fun. Be thankful you are not a part of it.

My thoughts exactly.

Good luck with the clear up operation.

[Ray]

Linus, what Jim says and more! Assuming you are still in Santa Cruz, get in touch with your county Office of Emergency Management, see if they have any CERT or other vol programs. A ham with a rover can be pretty useful on a "bad day".

[leafsprung]

the only difference between adventure and ordeal is attitude

[jonnyc]

We got nailed pretty good here in Eastern PA also.
Got an extra two days off of school (Yay, I'm a teacher!) and power came back on Wednesday afternoon. Lots of detours, but unfortunately I had no need for 4WD.

[Jim-ME]

I was in Newport News Va. visiting my daughter. She lucked out and all we had was rain and a relatively mild wild by my standards. I did get stuck an extra day because I couldn't get thru NYC on the train. Ended up renting a car and driving home. Boy was I glad I bought gas in Delaware. The gas lines in NJ were as bad as the news has shown. I'm very happy to live in ME where I don't have to deal with hurricanes. My thoughts are with all of you that got hit by Sandy.
Jim

[emmotto]

Here in SW CT has been rough - not as rough as NY, NJ but no walk in the park. Wilton (my town) is #2 on the list of towns w/o power statewide, behind only Redding by a single percentage point. 67% of CL&P customers in Wilton are w/o power - down from a high of 83%. After 4 days.

On the other hand - we have a 20kw whole house generator - that failed catastrophically after only 18hrs of service! The engine threw a rod and splattered oil and chunks of aluminum all over the interior of the unit. So in the beginning we were like gods - with lights and power when others did not have. Then we fell to earth and became mere mortals again! No power, no heat, no water (on well).

On the bright side (good yolk) my Generac dealer fought with the company for 3 days and was finally able to get me a replacement which was installed yesterday. So we are warm, powered up and clean again while we wait for the power company to restore service.

Not a fan of Generac and especially not a fan of their customer support.

As for the Rover? It's been running fine, transporting chainsaws and fuel and looks incredibly in place under the circumstances.

[emmotto]

Sandy Rover in CT


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[TeriAnn]

disaster prepairdness and city folks

The only thing that ever happens here is it gets foggy. I dont get to use my land rover for anything. I have a chainsaw that I used once, a winch I used once (to move a broken car) and sometimes I wish something interesting would happen. Of course, I dont want a tree to fall on my house or anything bad, but a few trees to cut up, some road washouts here and there.. a little adventure would be nice.

I recon 5:04 PM on October 17 1989 is just a long time in the past for you and you had yet go get your first Land Rover or chain saw. Well take heart that there are a couple faults around 70-80 miles North of you that are overdue for generating major quakes and there is a major slip fault off the coast North of you capable of generating a 60 foot or so tsunami along the coast.

Meanwhile you can move up into the Santa Cruz mountains into a house on one of the back roads around Boulder Creek. They sometimes get heavy rain storms that get stuck on the side of the mountain and rain big time. After I moved out of the San Lorenzo valley I used to take my Land Rover and chain saw up back up into the Santa Cruz mountains after a major storm and help locals clear fallen trees off the roads. It was always a good feeling to help other people dig out from a storm. You might try that for a little post disaster recreation.

The coverage of the storm out East reminds me of how helpless many city folks seem to be when it comes to loosing modern conveniences. Some people lost all their survival resources. Not a whole lot you can do there but rely upon emergency disaster resources. A lot of people died. Mostly because they didn't believe the predictions and hunkered down instead of getting out as they were told to do. But most of the people in the region who were affected still have their houses, vehicles and any survival resources after the storm had passed. And they had about a week notice to either stock up or bug out.

I wonder why there are long gas lines when there was plenty of time before the storm to top up car gas tanks and lay in cans of fuel?

If you know a big storm is coming why not stockpile fuel, water and food?? From the news it seems like a lot of people bought generators but why didn't they stock up on fuel for the generators? There are a lot of people in dire straights who could be enjoying the novelty of roughing it for a few weeks if they had just headed the predictions and stocked up.

I guess I just spent too many years living in the Santa Cruz mountain back roads where a major storm can cut you off for a week or more and electricity often took over a week to come back on. I feel bad for the folks who died, those who have lost everything and those who didn't loose everything but are going through rough hardships because they do not have food, a way to cook, fuel or a way to stay warm. But so much of this loss of life didn't have to happen. When someone says your house is very likely to be flooded or a closing fire is going to take your house you get out and don't hunker down assuming it will miss you. I do wonder about people who think that they and their garden hose can stand up against an oncoming forest fire. Maybe if you had a D4 CAT or bigger and a Land Rover fire truck with functional pump and a body of water. But a garden water hose is just asking to become a crispy critter. And there is just nothing you can do about storm serge or a raising river but load up what you can and bug out before it hits.

If you are in a place where your house will most likely survive intact and have days of warning you stock up and make sure you have a water supply, a way of light, cooking and staying warm that does not depend upon utilities. If you can not live for a few weeks without electricity, gas and a water connection you are just zombie fodder hoping for emergency services to come and take care of you then make the world right for you.

Disasters happen. It is where you choose to live and how you prepare for likely disasters that makes the difference. There are always those who choose to live very close to sea level or river level, in a major fault rift zone, the top or bottom of a cliff or in a landslide slip zone. You roll the dice where you choose to live and most of the time you win. But one can stock & gear up and learn the skills that go along with the gear. Skills & supplies, along with the sense to know when to hunker down and when to bug out before the disaster go a long way towards loading the dice your way.

[artpeck]

I have 12,000 people that work for me in the affected area and am fairly well informed through individuals as well as govt and non profit sources as to the situation. Of course there are people who do the wrong things out of ignorance, panic or stupidity. However in my experience that pretty much applies to any human endeavor. Not to mention that the media covers what makes a story and smart well prepared people that are weathering this aren't news worthy. I also have security camera footage of what the water did in buildings where people had every right to expect little impact and it gives you the chills to watch the sudden destructive power of the storm surge.

I am focusing my energy on what ever can be done to help. And while aid is needed now the lesson of katrina is that the long tail of recovery and rebuilding is where the most energy and resources are required.