Hurricane Survival Thread 2012

Katy wrote:

We were debating at dinner tonight whether it was better to call a hurricane with snow a snowicane or a hurriblizzard.

I know this kind of weather is not at all funny, but "hurriblizzard" made me laugh.

Keep safe, fellow Goodjers!

Katy wrote:

We were debating at dinner tonight whether it was better to call a hurricane with snow a snowicane or a hurriblizzard.

I vote hurriblizzard. Having been through a thundersnow, and a snownado, I wish those in the hurriblizzard's path the best of luck weathering the storm, and weatherproofing their lives for, hopefully, only a few days.

We are ready for it here...as ready as we can be. We live in CT...and they are bracing us to be hit hard. Last year for the storm in October people were without power for like 12 days in places.

We have bottled water, shelf stable food (including almond milk ), some refrigerator stuff, candles, flash lights, oil lamps and our newest edition, a generator. Not a huge one, just 4000 amps, but enough to run a few things at once. It is a whole new world when you have kids and face these things, if we have no power, we have no heat, and while we can understand we need to sit under a blanket, kids don't. so if that is the case, we can run a space heater. We bough the generator in May, so luckily before the big rush right now

This weekend we need to tie up the kids outdoor toys and trash cans, do a final load of laundry and that's it. We did all our errands today, figuring we would not want to go anywhere near a grocery store or home depot this weekend. I gassed up my car as well.

Missy9579 wrote:

We are ready for it here...as ready as we can be. We live in CT...and they are bracing us to be hit hard. Last year for the storm in October people were without power for like 12 days in places.

We have bottled water, shelf stable food (including almond milk ), some refrigerator stuff, candles, flash lights, oil lamps and our newest edition, a generator. Not a huge one, just 4000 amps, but enough to run a few things at once. It is a whole new world when you have kids and face these things, if we have no power, we have no heat, and while we can understand we need to sit under a blanket, kids don't. so if that is the case, we can run a space heater. We bough the generator in May, so luckily before the big rush right now

This weekend we need to tie up the kids outdoor toys and trash cans, do a final load of laundry and that's it. We did all our errands today, figuring we would not want to go anywhere near a grocery store or home depot this weekend. I gassed up my car as well.

I'm also in CT. I remember the last power outage well. We were out for 8 days and change. Not fun at all. I hope this one will fizzle rather than do the same thing - we have a baby this time, so things will be harder. No generator either, sadly. I ran some errands, got most of what I needed. Apparently there are now bread shortages. Crazy. You'd swear we were in Soviet Russia, or something.

Rallick wrote:
Missy9579 wrote:

We are ready for it here...as ready as we can be. We live in CT...and they are bracing us to be hit hard. Last year for the storm in October people were without power for like 12 days in places.

We have bottled water, shelf stable food (including almond milk ), some refrigerator stuff, candles, flash lights, oil lamps and our newest edition, a generator. Not a huge one, just 4000 amps, but enough to run a few things at once. It is a whole new world when you have kids and face these things, if we have no power, we have no heat, and while we can understand we need to sit under a blanket, kids don't. so if that is the case, we can run a space heater. We bough the generator in May, so luckily before the big rush right now

This weekend we need to tie up the kids outdoor toys and trash cans, do a final load of laundry and that's it. We did all our errands today, figuring we would not want to go anywhere near a grocery store or home depot this weekend. I gassed up my car as well.

I'm also in CT. I remember the last power outage well. We were out for 8 days and change. Not fun at all. I hope this one will fizzle rather than do the same thing - we have a baby this time, so things will be harder. No generator either, sadly. I ran some errands, got most of what I needed. Apparently there are now bread shortages. Crazy. You'd swear we were in Soviet Russia, or something.

Home Depot this morning had no 5 gallon gas cans, no flash lights, Walmart had no 5 gallon gas cans and minimal flashlight selection. The market was not really bad today, but I know this weekend it will be a zoo...we keep a pretty stocked supply of food on hand, including many packs of deli thins in the freezer. All we really bought was some lunch meat and fresh fruits/veggies for us. All our meat can go on the grill, we have an extra propane tank.

There is a very small part of me that likes being without power..its rustic, and romantic, at least it was when the babies were tiny. Now that they are toddlers, it may suck lol

After the last storm, having the babies, we decide to invest in an inexpensive, sort of minimum requirements generator. I think we paid around $260 through amazon. Figuring even if we never needed to use in the next 10 years, the piece of mind was worth it!

We have underground power, so unless the local transformer gets nailed, or the entire city goes, we don't usually lose it. I'm hoping the lucky streak continues.

We lose power when the cat farts.

Cat farts is impressive. My folks are stocked up out in that area as well, but way down on the coast near Dahlgren, on the MD side of things. Thoughts and prayers for all of ya next week.

Wait, Rallick is in CT as well? Party at Missy's place!!

Oh wait, we already do that once a year anyway, huh? Here in Meriden I was one of the 6% of the town who had power during Irene. Unfortunately my internet and cable went out for a few days. I'm doing nothing to prep for this storm as I see it being high winds for us and some rain. I know that my mom in Bristol and brother in Madison were both out for at least 7 days. We offered up our house as a family command post for everyone to come and stay but they decided to wait it out. I just don't get my family

DeThroned wrote:

Wait, Rallick is in CT as well? Party at Missy's place!!

Oh wait, we already do that once a year anyway, huh? Here in Meriden I was one of the 6% of the town who had power during Irene. Unfortunately my internet and cable went out for a few days. I'm doing nothing to prep for this storm as I see it being high winds for us and some rain. I know that my mom in Bristol and brother in Madison were both out for at least 7 days. We offered up our house as a family command post for everyone to come and stay but they decided to wait it out. I just don't get my family :)

Yeah, one of these days we'll have to organize a S&T in CT. Perhaps we should wait until after the storm is over, though! I'm not expecting the actual storm to be terrible, but CL&P suck when it comes to making sure power gets reconnected. If we do get an outage, I wouldn't be surprised if it lasted several days. Boo.

I'm still trying to figure out whether to leave Brooklyn. Absurddoctor has to stay to make sure things at work run as smoothly as possible. I turned down an offer to go to my brother's place in Boston, basically because there aren't that many options left for travelling there. I could also go to my parents' house upstate, but the downside is that I'd have to deal with my father. I had ordered groceries from FreshDirect, but they cancelled the order due to the storm, so I will have to go out tomorrow and fight like it's Black Friday at Wal-Mart.

Here's a good pic for the situation...

IMAGE(https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/527374_444058712325247_374724585_n.jpg)

Canned goods - check
Hydration - check

Okay. I ran my freezer overtime last night and filled ziplock bags with ice cubes that I have filled the freezer with. I have bungeed down my gas grill and brought everything that can fly around off the deck. Filled my gas tank in my car.

Now I just need to tell my neighbor to take his ginormous sun shade off his deck.

You know what? I probably gotta help my old man move stuff inside from off the deck and everything. I didn't even think about that.

Then again, I've had little enough experience with hurricanes that I'm just expecting absurd amounts of rain and probably working from home as I know most of the roads I take to work tend to get a bit floody. The idea of going out and buying all kinds of survival items seems a bit off to me.

That hurricane from 2010 that Katy posted only knocked our power out for a few hours. It did, however, knock my Aunt's power out for several days, and she's just a few minutes drive from me.

I guess this means god wanted more seasons of Jersey Shore?

CheezePavilion wrote:

I guess this means god wanted more seasons of Jersey Shore?

Eternity is a long time. Sometimes you get tired of Law & Order reruns.

ccesarano wrote:

You know what? I probably gotta help my old man move stuff inside from off the deck and everything. I didn't even think about that.

Then again, I've had little enough experience with hurricanes that I'm just expecting absurd amounts of rain and probably working from home as I know most of the roads I take to work tend to get a bit floody. The idea of going out and buying all kinds of survival items seems a bit off to me.

That hurricane from 2010 that Katy posted only knocked our power out for a few hours. It did, however, knock my Aunt's power out for several days, and she's just a few minutes drive from me.

I don't know where you are, but the main idea behind buying survival items is that the power will likely be out for millions for days.

I lost power for three days after a major ice storm and around three days for Irene. It doesn't sound like much but if you don't have flashlights, batteries, food that doesn't need heating, and water (since water pumps won't work) and you get hit with several days of no power, you'll be a sad panda. For a lot of people around here (and this is Boston outskirts, not some small town) they were out of power for nearly a week with Irene.

Also, with this storm as with most hurricanes, it's not the rain that's the problem, it's the 75mph winds blowing tree branches into power lines and windows. And of course, the storm surge is dangerous in coastal areas.

Battening down the hatches. A little late due to having to be at a swim meet most of the day but nothing is happening yet out here. I doubt we will get much except for a lot of rain and some wind of course. Nothing like folks closer to the shore. Despite that, schools around here are closing for Mon. and Tues.

I saw a caravan of ~two dozen utility vehicles from IA heading east on 66 coming back from the meet; it looks like the power companies are getting ready.

Good luck and stay safe folks.

Another weather map, legitimate this time.

IMAGE(http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/6792/52359210152203083695442.jpg)

WCAX-TV (Vermont)[/url]]Here is why there is so much concern about this storm. This is one of charts that we forecasters look at when we are trying to predict the weather. This shows the storm at 8 PM Monday, just before it comes ashore. The solid circles indicate pressure readings. The closer they are together, the stronger the wind. Look how close together they are! All of us forecasting professionals have never seen anything like this on the forecast charts before. And to have it be right over one of the most populated parts of the country . . . well, that's why there is all this hype. The worst will be down near NYC, NJ, etc. Here in VT, NH, and northern NY, we will still get damaging winds, and some flooding rain, but nothing like Irene. The worst of the wind will be Monday evening/night into the first part of Tuesday. We're not trying to scare anyone, just keeping you all informed. We want you to be safe, that's all. ~Gary

Also scary: IMAGE(http://icons-ak.wunderground.com/data/images/at201218_wind.gif) - TS force winds from Long Island Sound to Georgia.

Cool (although with the sun going down, this won't be interesting again until the morning):

Not sure if I need to board up the sliding glass doors or not, they face North

Some of the winds will be north->south, so depending on the path the storm takes, you could potentially get debris coming from the north. Given how upset the weather people sound, I'd board them up.

By the way, speaking more generally, this is global warming at work -- heat is energy, and the extra energy in the atmosphere has pushed warm air far north elsewhere in the world. That displaced a bunch of cold air down into the US. Sandy has also come unusually far north, because it has more heat than usual to drive it, and an extremely unusual (and probably violent) collision is happening in a densely populated area.

This is what global warming means. This is part of why it's so bad.

Look like Staten Island is going to get the part of the brunt. Times like this is when I hate vynel siding.

Looks like DC is shut down for Monday.

OPM closed all gov. offices, which isn't too unusual, but DC Metro rail and bus service is completely suspended for the day, making it highly unlikely for any other employer to reasonably expect people to show up for work.

Snow day for me! Just hope the power stays on.

The boss hasn't called it, but I am emailing her to tell her I will be working from home.

edit: also, the wife has already left for work in Towson.

I work from home anyway. Probably won't have as many calls from customers as usual, however.

The rain has been ramping up to a steady downpour all night. The wind is unsettled, blustery (maybe 3-20mph) and mostly from the N/NW. No real surface flooding yet, just puddles appearing at the usual locations.

Well, DC shutting down just means my commute will maybe suck a bit less.

I'm in Southern Maine, and it's been little more than a drizzle of rain for the past few hours. I'm curious to see how hard we'll be hit this far North.

Also, I'm glad the wife has the day off and won't be on the road today.

So far very little wind and a bit of rain here in CT. No doubt things will get worse. I just pray that the power won't go out. I remember when Irene hit, and the blizzard before that, the powercuts were both extended and painful. Makes you realize just how much of civilization runs on electricity. Heating water over hot coals was... primitive. Fun for a day or so, after that it got old. Also, instant coffee is an abomination and nobody should have to drink it.

It's been raining since yesterday here in South Jersey, just about 15 minutes from the Commodore Barry into PA (and another 10-15 to Philly after that). A state of emergency was declared in PA and all the schools are shut down. Last time there was heavy rain a lot of roads started to flood on my way to work, so I'm just going to remote in and not take any chances.

Nothing outside of a heavy rain, though. It's just your average storm for now.

I've noticed that the storm will curve around the Western and Northern borders of Maine. My feeling is that it'll stop raining up there sometime Friday. You're gonna get whacked, rain-wise...

In Maryland, we've had steady heavy rain since maybe 3am or so. It's impressive, and it's just getting started.

So far the only damage is my patio cover that just ripped I am constantly checking my siding to make sure none of it got taken off from gusts. The worst will be in the dark tonight so it's going to be a sleepless night.