Sandy ?

[offthewall]

Mario, Thom and any others 

Hope all is well with you guys over there 

 
James

[MarioD]

James, thank you for your concern.

We have had three days of rain and now with Sandy coming we are expecting five more days of rain, heavy at times.  We are expecting winds of 50-70 mph (80-112 kph) so many trees are expected to fall taking with them power lines.  Although our power, TV and phone cables are under ground about 1 mile from us they go above ground.  If you don’t hear from me it is because we are without power.  We are prepared!

Thom is located near where the storm’s eye is expected to touch ground.  Hopefully he is OK.

It looks like I will be bringing out my original DAW again, pencils and staff paper     The biggest problem with that is my pencil does not have a spell checker 

[folderol]

In my lifetime we've only had two such events - the 1953 storm surge and the 1987 hurricane. I don't know how you guys manage to put up with this sort of thing on a regular basis
Respect!Hope, you're all keeping safe.

[MarioD]

Well we made it through the night. Heavy rain with winds around 70-90 mph. We were very fortunate in that we did not have any damage to our house plus we never lost power. There are 1,000s of people around us without power right now. Along the shore of Lake Ontario approximately 3,000 people had to evacuate do to high waves. Some of those homes I hear got significant damage. My neighbor lost is porch’s awning and it ripped out some of his porch screens. 

It looks like the worst is over here.  It is suppose to rain now for the next 6 days with winds today around 20-30 mph.  Right now it is still and not raining but that should change soon according to the weather reports.

Thanx for your concern and prayers.

[elwoodblues1969]

As all of you have probably seen in the news,the southern part of N.J. was hit the worst,but fortunately for me,I not only live in a fortified building(power-wise),but also live about 10 miles inland from the shoreline of Seaside Heights(which is one of the ground zero points of the hurricane's central path).
I'm not entirely unaffected by the storm,as what normally occurs in bad weather,is that the main electrical line is out...but prior to this particular hurricane,there was always a back-up line that gave our apartments about 50% of our usual amount of electricity....but this time,all the power was wiped out for 4 days.
Up until today,all we had to go on,was the power from the building's generator(which only powered the emergency lighting in the hallways and the common areas of the first floor.
What little power was left,was for one elevator,running water(still no hot water and of course no heat either) & power to one electrical outlet in the community room on the 1st floor(this powered the television and the DVD player in that room....so at least all of us in my building didn't have to sit in the dark for 4 days.

As things are now,I have hot water...but still no heat...so I pulled a "MacGyver" and covered my bedroom and hall doorways with blankets and I have 10 candles burning,which give off a surprising amount of heat.
There's about a 15 degree difference between my bedroom,versus the rest of my apartment(bedroom is roughly 60 degrees,whereas everywhere else is about 45 degrees).

Before the local grocery stores resumed to open,I began to panic a bit over my food situation..as I only had about $25 left to my name before the storm...so as it was then,I had about 3 days worth of tuna and crackers.
Over the those next 3 days after the storm,most everyone banned together and pooled all of their stockpiles of food together...so that helped me out  bit.
Interestingly enough,the day that the generator died,the back up power line powered up again...so all things considered,all of us here in the building,managed quite well...but for those that are confined to wheelchairs and survive on oxygen tanks to breath..well...that got a bit daunting at times for some,but the hospital down the street from us,kept the folks with dire needs going,throughout this whole ordeal.

As I am sure all of you are aware by now,in N.J....there were as much as 89 MPH winds,about 74 people killed,2.6 million without power,hundreds of people without homes and as far as I know...the only other areas that were devastated,were some of the coastal areas of N.Y....such as Queens,Staten Island & Coney Island.
I had also heard that there were as much as 8 million without power in N.J. at one point and as for New York,Mayor Bloomberg anticipates N.Y. to regain full power by this Saturday.

Thanks to all of you for your concern and I'm glad that Mario is fine(but I wasn't too worried),due to where he is located.As for underground electrical wiring,my parents' retirement community has that type of wiring and I wish more areas were desgined this way.


-Thom

[elwoodblues1969]

My apartment fortification....

[folderol]

Pleased to see you're OK... ish and impressed that the neighbours got together and supported each other.

My sympathies for those that didn't fare so well.

[offthewall]

I'm so glad to hear that you guys are well. 

We were all quite concerned, friends. 

 
James

[MarioD]

I'm so glad to hear that you guys are well. 

We were all quite concerned, friends. 

 
James

Yes, we were very concerned.

It sounds like great people surround you.  I’m glad everything is getting better.

[elwoodblues1969]

Some more stunning pics I've found...

[elwoodblues1969]