Hurricane Survival Thread 2012

Checking in from Lowell, MA.

Had a tree go down a block from the house yesterday afternoon, and it took the top T off one of the poles. Been without power since 3:30pm yesterday, but most of the rest of town still has power.

The wife, myself, and our roommate all planned for being out of power - so all three 3DSs were charged up and ready to rock. Weathered the storm by playing Pokemon Black & White 2 by candlelight.

Very little power loss or damage in my town and immediate neighbors. I think everything that was likely to cause problems pretty much broke last summer during hurricane Irene.

At the office. No one else is here. Getting caught up on email.

Northern NJ here. Lots of power outages, lots of fallen tree damage. My street doesn't have power due to this:

IMAGE(http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/2278/imag10761.jpg)

Same thing repeats over and over across the whole town. My wife drove to her work -- a pediatrician's office -- to check on the perishable vaccines in the fridge (they perished). Fallen trees everywhere, and a spooky picture of a big puddle being boiled by a loose end of a severed power line. According to the town, the power lines repairs won't be complete until Nov 5th.

On a positive side, we have water and gas, and friends who live in five-minute walking distance have their power running OK -- that's where I am posting this from.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

Not sure if anyone else from Philly posted, but it looked the storm was going to run right into us, but in my neck of the woods all we got was some shaking trees and a whole lot of falling leaves. Not even much rain. Never lost power.

I almost posted last night, but I didn't want to jinx anything.

We live in a western suburb of Philly, and we came through just fine. We had one brownout that was enough to make the DVR reboot, but that was it. When I drop to work in Montgomery Country this morning, the main roads were clear and the Schuykill River didn't appear to all that high. Last year Irene caused flood warnings for the Schuykill (my office is right next to it), but I didn't see any this year. I think most of the flooding in our area was small creek and storm surge related, based on the news saying that as of last night we'd only gotten just over 2" of rain.

Mother is at her job at a hospital. They're on generator power right now. Other family members have no power, a few without cellular networks. Uncle's basement office is flooded after the water apparently punched a hole through solid concrete. No power at his job or his house.

No power = no info. Hospital and family working in the dark. Doing my best to catch them all up on what's happened, what the governors and mayors have said, which areas were hit the hardest, etc. They didn't even know about half the info reported last night.

Many of the places we visited by the shore when I was a kid do not exist anymore. Just gone. Wishing I could go to NJ right now and do something.

Toanstation wrote:
Warriorpoet897 wrote:

Not sure if anyone else from Philly posted, but it looked the storm was going to run right into us, but in my neck of the woods all we got was some shaking trees and a whole lot of falling leaves. Not even much rain. Never lost power.

I almost posted last night, but I didn't want to jinx anything.

We live in a western suburb of Philly, and we came through just fine. We had one brownout that was enough to make the DVR reboot, but that was it. When I drop to work in Montgomery Country this morning, the main roads were clear and the Schuykill River didn't appear to all that high. Last year Irene caused flood warnings for the Schuykill (my office is right next to it), but I didn't see any this year. I think most of the flooding in our area was small creek and storm surge related, based on the news saying that as of last night we'd only gotten just over 2" of rain.

Don't suppose you'd know the condition of 452 and 352 North up towards West Chester, would you? That's the route I take into work.

There wasn't a complete overlap, but how did any of the trees that survived the June 2012 Derecho not survive this one?

ccesarano wrote:

Don't suppose you'd know the condition of 452 and 352 North up towards West Chester, would you? That's the route I take into work.

PennDOT's 511 map (http://www.511pa.com/Traffic.aspx?Region=Greater Philadelphia Region) shows a downed utility line at the intersection of 452/352 and US 1, but I haven't been near there, so I can't say firsthand.

IMAGE(http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mcpt6tfcFV1qz6f9yo1_500.jpg)

Toanstation wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Don't suppose you'd know the condition of 452 and 352 North up towards West Chester, would you? That's the route I take into work.

PennDOT's 511 map (http://www.511pa.com/Traffic.aspx?Region=Greater Philadelphia Region) shows a downed utility line at the intersection of 452/352 and US 1, but I haven't been near there, so I can't say firsthand.

Right on Baltimore Pike. That intersection gets clogged up on fine weather days as it is, but it's avoidable as well. I know a way around that gets to 352 North (and incidentally passes Granite Run Mall, which looks so skeezy and trashy that I just gotta see what it's like inside one of these days).

That's a fantastic website. Thanks for it.

RolandofGilead wrote:

Holy crap, we actually have a skyscraper crane breaking and ready to fall any minute now. Sandy has now created a situation previously only found in comic books (and related properties).

A slightly better pic of the above situation:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/8b266.jpg)

Robear wrote:

The NYC Subway system has been badly flooded and is entirely shut down. It will take up to four days just to pump out the water, and then the entire system of rails, railbeds, electrical components and control systems has to be closely inspected. NYC mass transit is screwed for a while, and that means the city is screwed.

If by badly flooded you mean looking like the Death Star trash compactor:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/9MIFW.jpg)

then yes, you are correct. For reference, the two folks are standing on the platform, and where the water is on either side of them is ~5-6 feet deep.

That means the rats will have to head to higher ground...

IMAGE(http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1510861/dishonored-review-rat-swarm-555.jpg)

ccesarano wrote:

Right on Baltimore Pike. That intersection gets clogged up on fine weather days as it is, but it's avoidable as well. I know a way around that gets to 352 North (and incidentally passes Granite Run Mall, which looks so skeezy and trashy that I just gotta see what it's like inside one of these days).

It's not so bad.

That's a fantastic website. Thanks for it. :)

You're welcome. PA has actually gained some (positive) recognition for it's online presence. Advanced in the interwebs, medieval in liquor laws.

That's what NJ is for. There's a liquor store as soon as you cross the Commodore Barry.

Well, not as soon as, but it's the first non-exit off 322 you see.

Toanstation wrote:
ccesarano wrote:

Right on Baltimore Pike. That intersection gets clogged up on fine weather days as it is, but it's avoidable as well. I know a way around that gets to 352 North (and incidentally passes Granite Run Mall, which looks so skeezy and trashy that I just gotta see what it's like inside one of these days).

It's not so bad.

That's a fantastic website. Thanks for it. :)

You're welcome. PA has actually gained some (positive) recognition for it's online presence. Advanced in the interwebs, medieval in liquor laws.

Still have crappy roads.

Started work at 0930. Got to first job around 1030. Figured out it was an outage about 2 minutes after being in the house (the down tree across the power lines was a pretty good giveaway). Closed job out and created outage ticket. Got stuck in the mud around 1045. Got pulled out by tow truck around 1300.

Arrived at second job around 1415. Reset customer's modem, closed job out, and drove home.

Yeah, that was really worth having us come in today. I normally complete about 6-7 jobs in a day. Two is laughable.

Edit: Strike that, officially one job. I cancelled the call with the outage after putting the ticket in because when he calls back in it'll hurt my numbers.

Huuuf. Left for work on Sunday at 3:30.

Got back just now. Three days of non-stop reporting on Sandy, including a loss of power, a stay at a pitch-black hotel, a near-car accident and a dude in a speedo. And I was only in Westchester County.

Yeesh Pred. Glad you got home OK.

We lost power for approx. 45 minutes about 10-ish last night. A branch was torn from one of my trees in the front yard. And we had 5 shakes off the roof, so I have to get the roof guy out here as soon as he can. Of course he's already booked solid for the next couple of weeks.

Still, everyone is safe, we still have a roof over our heads, and we didn't have any flooding. So we win.

Prederick wrote:

Huuuf. Left for work on Sunday at 3:30.

Got back just now. Three days of non-stop reporting on Sandy, including a loss of power, a stay at a pitch-black hotel, a near-car accident and a dude in a speedo. And I was only in Westchester County.

Please elaborate??

Prederick wrote:

Huuuf. Left for work on Sunday at 3:30.

Got back just now. Three days of non-stop reporting on Sandy, including a loss of power, a stay at a pitch-black hotel, a near-car accident and a dude in a speedo. And I was only in Westchester County.

Glad you're home safe. I'm heading back up to work in Westchester tomorrow - luckily the car survived the evening intact.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Huuuf. Left for work on Sunday at 3:30.

Got back just now. Three days of non-stop reporting on Sandy, including a loss of power, a stay at a pitch-black hotel, a near-car accident and a dude in a speedo. And I was only in Westchester County.

Please elaborate?? :)

After that much time at work I'm sure he was referring to himself.

Get some rest, Pred. Sounds like you earned it, and then some.

I saw an article that claimed there were over 7,000 downed trees in NYC alone. Not reliably sourced yet, take with copious sodium chloride.

Looks like over 100 homes burned in Breezy Point -- the last number I saw was 120.

Oh, and the tall ship HMS Bounty, the movie replica that was built in 1962 and then restored a few years ago, was sunk during the hurricane. 2 lives of 16 lost... the captain and a female crewperson.

The HMS Bounty was one of the first stories I saw off of BBC's twitter feed. Damn shame.

Anyone know the effect that explosion posted a couple pages back had? That looked like some serious sh*t, like "Jesus Christ aliens are invading" sh*t.

I believe that's part of what blew NYC into total darkness.

tuffalobuffalo wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Huuuf. Left for work on Sunday at 3:30.

Got back just now. Three days of non-stop reporting on Sandy, including a loss of power, a stay at a pitch-black hotel, a near-car accident and a dude in a speedo. And I was only in Westchester County.

Please elaborate?? :)

HaaaaHa.

Apparently, the Bounty was lost because a diesel engine that ran the pumps failed, and it started taking on water at about 2 feet an hour. Normally, a ship like that would have a manual backup system, but one was never installed, because it was a movie prop, and the restoration budget never allowed for a manual system to be retrofitted. With 16 crew on board, they could easily have kept that ship afloat, if it had been properly designed.

The weather itself would not have sunk the ship.

There wasn't a complete overlap, but how did any of the trees that survived the June 2012 Derecho not survive this one?

Because of the hours and hours of continuous rain loosening the soil. Makes it easier for root balls to be pulled up. Also, the winds were close to the same speed in some areas, but coming from a different direction.

Survived it in Baltimore without major issue. I feel pretty thankful since the power only flickered once or twice, but beyond that I had a 4-day weekend.

Hope everyone made it out safely. Judging from the work talk this morning, a lot of other people had no power... and some still don't.