If you live on the East Coast are you concerned about the coming storm?
It sounds like it is going to be as bad as last August or worse.
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A bit nervous. We were hit hard last year. Trees down, telephone poles crashing down. And we couldn’t get out of our driveway due to live wires, etc. Also, no power for days. I have to manually run a generator for sump pump.
My sister in law has a genator. We do not have a genator.
Last August we had water in the Family Room.
We use to have Tropical storms but the severity is getting worse. They are also accuring more often.
Yes, always. At least, it will be fairly mild compared to a January storm. I will stock up on food that can be eaten cold. I will fill a tub and some stock pots with water. I will do laundry and shower on Sunday night.
I will buy AA batteries for portable radio and Walkman. I will check my miner’s headlamp. I will make sure I have a full tank of gas. I will be pleased that I still have a corded phone.
I will use Milo as a hotwater bottle.
With a bathtub filled with water, I can flush a toilet once or twice a day. Given the woods for peeing, that will be fine. I also have a wood-burning stove and plenty of wood.
It is uncomfortable and a nuisance, but doable. The power co. is trained to hit the live wires first.
We also have a 911 robocaller for incoming messages to everyohe who signed up.
Only mildly… as it gets closer and the forecasting accuracy increases, I may worry more.
Irene was pretty rough in the areas all around us, but we only lost power for 15 minutes or so the following day. Our home is situated right between a major railroad line and some big power lines with a transformer less than a mile away. We got a new sump pump before Irene, and we haven’t had water in our basement before or since.
We’ll be sure to batten that hatches and have plenty of water and stuff stashed, but I think we’ll be OK.
This one sounds really really ugly where I am. Irene pounded our area, we still haven’t totally recovered. The 2006 flood was a similar storm combination and I saw stuff I never want to see again. Our area just isn’t set up to handle this much rain. My house is up on a hill, I’ll be okay. I’m not so sure about my neighbors. I’ve got water, propane for my camp stove, lots of canned goods and a manual can opener, batteries, lots of candles, and a hand cranked weather radio.
I wish you guys all the best, scary!
Hey…you can always fly out to sunny California and hang out over here for a week.
My house is small but it’s cute and cozy. Bring sleeping bags. :-)
Be safe everyone!
[mod says] Minor typo in title corrected via internal edit.
First big storm I’m facing while living on my own and I have to go away to a wedding this weekend. A little nervous but dealing with it.
@janbb Be careful and have people aware of your travel plans. NJ looks like it’s a possible deadon hit. Let someone know when you’re supposed to be home to so they can check to see if you made it.
The red-letter advisory here (about halfway between Jan and Adirondack) is on Tues.
@Adirondackwannabe Thanks. Have told my boys. I’ll be travelling back from Northampton on Sunday so should make it home o.k., I hope.
I feel weird that they are telling us how to prepare for a hurricane… in Ohio.
@DigitalBlue This one is big and it’s a combination of systems all merging together. When they merge all bets are off. I think you’re reasonably safe, but be careful and be prepared.
@janbb: It’s a long drive. Will you be with someone or alone? I just checked the route and you go well south of me, so I am too far to help.
@Adirondackwannabe I’m really not panicking, I believe we are too far inland to get much of anything. If we get a storm, it shouldn’t be a big deal. I worry about those of you closer to the coast, of course, but my biggest complaint is that it is going to ruin trick-or-treat for us. It’s just weird to see myself in the projected path of a “hurricane,” because that sure doesn’t happen every day. :)
@janbb: Throw some food, water, flashlights, crank radio, warm clothes etc. in car, just in case. Make sure phones are charged. Locate several places to stop and spend the night if things get really dicey, which seems unlikely.
Looks like you’ll be driving into 50% chance of rain on Sunday and no red letter warnings until Mon.
http://www.weather.com/weather/5-day/Asbury+Park+NJ+USNJ0013:1:US
@DigitalBlue Don’t take this casually. In 2006 we had a hurricance come up the length of the Southeast, merge with another system and just hammer us. We had stuff flooded that was in the 500 year flood map
@janbb: Tues is the bad day for you as well as for me.
@Adirondackwannabe right, but, I don’t live anywhere near you. I can’t take the weather forecasts very seriously, because 99% of the time they are exaggerating. I have bottled water, flashlights, candles in the house. I’m not going overboard for what will probably end up being some drizzle, or maybe freezing rain, for us.
Different story for those of you closer, no doubt, but I’m not really concerned where I am.
@DigitalBlue I’m thinking take this one a little more seriously. This one is bad. Trust me on this?
I’m currently at school just 20 minutes away from Ocean City on the eastern shore of Maryland, which is pretty much going to be directly hit. So yeah, I’m a little worried. They haven’t evacuated us (yet) but we’re all buying nonperishable food and charging everything constantly because the power will almost certainly go out.
To add to @gailcalled‘s list for @janbb‘s travel on Sunday…
Don’t let the gas tank get too low. Even if you could make the entire trip on a single tank, be sure to fill up between ⅓–½ a tank just in case. Still, I think you’ll be home before the worst of it hits. I’m just off Exit 9 of the Turnpike, so even though it’s almost home for you, just know that you have a place to go if they’re not letting you go down the Parkway. <3
@hearkat That is a very nice thing to offer. I love how we’re all pulling together and sharing ideas to deal with this.
Feeling helpless with @Fly right there on the coast. :(
@augustlan I understand.
@Fly How far above the ground are you in your room?
@Fly Pretty odd they didnt evac your school yet or have plans to. I go to school incidentally about 20 minutes from ocean city NJ (yea i know your down in maryland) and they have all the colleges around here evacuating by no later than 12 noon on sunday.
@Adirondackwannabe I should be fine as far as flooding is concerned, I’m 2½ floors up (the entry is a split-level). Flooding is very bad at the university, though. It floods sometimes even in normal/light rainfall. A lot of students have already gone home.
@uberbatman I’m a little surprised, too. Delaware schools have already been evacuated as well. I doubt they’ll evacuate us at this point, but who knows. They did already cancel Monday classes, though.
@Fly Okay. Be careful. The storm surge by itself is going to be 4 to 8 feet. That’s going to be very mean. Keep watching and if in doubt get out earlier rather than later.
Philadelphia looks like it’s supposed to be right near the center of the storm’s path. But this is just a rain event. There will be high winds, but we’ve been through that many times before. There might be a foot of rain, but we’ve had that before, too. It’s not like it’s snow.
While we do lose electricity here, occasionally, it is rarely during a storm. It usually comes back on pretty quickly because we are a city, and they triage the repairs. Those repairs that affect the highest number of people get the highest priority.
We live on a hill. We have good bridges across all the rivers. We have recently made some improvements to keep our basement from leaking. We’ve got water in the basement. Drinking water, I mean. We’ve got the normal stores of food in our cupboards. We thinned the big tree out front last year.
So I don’t know what else to do, except buy a generator.
But I think there’s a lot of hype to the weather reports, and they do this not just in the interest of public safety, but because it sells news. They overhype it because people really complain if they don’t get warning, but they only somewhat complain if they get too much warning. So the weather folks always overhype it, just to be safe.
Be prepared, sure. But be aware of the over hyping.
Our biggest concern, it seems, will be 31 mph winds and some flooding. The alerts in red letters have disappeared. But the chances of power outages are still high due to the amount of acreage of impenetrable woodlands. All it takes is one large branch downed on a power line to plunge the whole area into darkness.
However, every time I turn on the weather channel, there is a slightly different forecast. Lots and lots of rain.
I forgot to mention that I have a wonderful little sump pump in my basement that kicks on automatically when the ground water hits a certain point.
The sump pump and french drain are wonderful inventions! Our sump pump was replaced a couple months prior to Irene, and I’ve not heard it kick on. My genius som has put wheels partially on the cover, so when he gets home later, I’ll have him move them and teach him how to test the sump pump. Of course, most sump pumps need electricity – so if the power goes out, they may not work.
No rain here yet, at 7:45 a.m. on Sunday, 10/28. There’s a bit of a breeze, though.
Top wind speed during this whole thing for my area is only supposed to be 33mph now. Considerably less than what they said before. Theyre still calling for heavy rains but honestly, I’m thinking this is just like every other semi large weather event, hype the shit outta it so people run out to the stores and buy a ton of stuff when really its not going to be that bad at all.
I just read the evacuation warnings for @Janbb’s area in NJ. Are you here, Jan? Are you in N. Hampton for that wedding.
I hope that you are OK and on high ground.
@uberbatman: 33mph winds can bring down a lot of dead wood; it takes only one large limbon a power line to mess up a huge area.
My work is closed for two days.
I didn’t think it was supposed to be too bad here, but I just learned that tomorrow’s classes are cancelled.
@gailcalled I suppose. Im not really worried as I live on a farm so I’m not really concerned with trees. I could lose power but that surely wouldnt be the end of the world or anything.
Coastal jellies, watch out. The storm surge could be 10 feet. Be careful.
@gailcalled made it back from the wedding by early evening and was asked by a friend with a big house a mile more inland to sleep over. I am there. My neighborhood not evaluated but nearby towns are.
@janbb: That’s a relief. Here it is still the lull before.
Was the wedding fun?
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln – yeah, it was fun.
Glad to hear that @janbb This one sounds bad.
Still a whole lotta nothing going on in my area. I honestly am hoping to see some crazy weather. I hope no one gets hurt or anything but I’d love to see some extreme weather.
Sending good thoughts to all of you from here in California. Give me an earthquake any day!
The weather here is getting increasingly bad. The pier at Ocean City was destroyed by waves as of 2-ish hours ago. I will definitely be staying inside the next few days!
They’re calling for winds up to 75 mph in @Fly‘s area, and up to 60 mph in mine. I’m bugging the crap out of @Fly, being a worrywart mom.
Still nothing too bad in my area just some rain and wind but its not expected to get bad here until 12ish I believe. Stay safe guys :)
As @uberbatman reports, New Jersey is becoming increasingly windy and some rain is falling. I am hopeful that it won’t be too bad, since the two big storms last fall downed a lot of the dead wood, and they were pretty aggressive about clearing trees around power lines after that.
The biggest worry for me is my friends who live near the shore… this storm surge with the lunar high tides look like it’ll be very serious. This afternoon and evening will be the worst for that. Then it looks like further inland will be getting very drenched. Prior to Irene, the ground was already saturated, but it has been on the dry side the past few weeks. Flooding from leaves clogging storm drains may also be an issue for some areas.
1:00 pm. I woke this morning to a whole lot of absolutely nothing. However, in the last 15 minutes I see the tops of the large accidental white pines and oaks starting to sway.
We have 100% chance of rain later today and all day tomorrow and wind advisories of 36 mph, which is relatively mild compared to other more coastal areas.
Up until now it has been a whole lot of boring and a lot of waiting. No one is out on the streets. It’s like a winter weekend storm in Philly. But in the last few minutes, we’ve had some starting to sound serious gusts of wind. If it goes like that for extended periods of time, it will definitely sound exciting. But I guess we’ll get used to it after a while. Especially if the house holds up.
We’ve been running around tying down the porch swing and the garbage cans and such like. Meanwhile, I’ve been working.
We cleared everything off the deck yesterday; but our huge ceramic grill, which is covered now.
The wind has progressively gotten stronger through the day, and now the gusts are very loud. We didn’t replace the screen with the glass in the storm door – so the gusts are whistling through the front door. With the glass, it might have been less noisy, but who knows if it might have broken – especially if a branch or debris hits it.
We had the power go out for just a couple minutes and came right back on – we just heard that a tree came down about a mile away and took some power lines with it. We have all our stuff on their chargers, and candles at the ready…
it’s been windy and off and on rainy here all day; the worst is supposed to be tonight. A friend invited me to stay over and I am grateful to be here.
Still a whole lotta nothing in my area. Im bored…. was lookin forward to some cool weather….
It’s blowing steadily harder. We have all the storm windows down. And washed. That was an accident. Now they can get dirty. But I think having double windows in place everywhere helps. Also we have insulation we put in a week or so ago. So the house feels tighter, although I can definitely feel the air coming through the walls (we have an old house). We’ve had a few flickers, but the power has been on so far.
I think it passed my area by now. Outside now its pretty calm and not even really raining anymore. I may be in the eye or something right now cause I believe that was supposed to pass right over me but its a whole lot of nothin goin on outside…
My old house is so drafty, it’s actually a little windy inside.
@augustlan Same in my dorm room!! I haven’t left my room all day. They brought food to the dorms. They haven’t cancelled tomorrow’s classes so I really hope the weather is less icky tomorrow. It’s not so bad outside that I’m scared, I just don’t think it will be fun to walk through.
Glad to hear you’re all safe.
Looks bad nearly everywhere around is… fortunately, we’re still with power most of the time. The winds are still whipping.
The winds that were howling are now really really quiet. The rain has stopped too.What’s happening?
It looks like the storm went a little further south than it was predicted to. Oddly, though, it seems like Manhattan is getting swamped.
Anyway, the winds are not so strong at the moment. The storm came ashore half an hour to an hour ago, so it is chugging nearer to me. But I think we’re on the weak side of it.
I have a headache, probably from low pressure.
Are all of our jellies accounted for?
It’s windy in Ohio, we have 30mph winds right now with 40mph gusts (I think higher a little closer to the lake), but we’re told to expect them to reach 60mph overnight. Power is spotty here. We’ll see.
We have wastewater wells all over the area from fracking, so locals are panicking about the flooding and what that might mean about contamination, but I don’t know if that is founded or just paranoia. It’s really not bad here, but worse than I had anticipated.
Hope everyone else is good, seems that most didn’t get hit too badly, which is good.
Reminds me of a Nor’easter. The wind doesn’t seem that high. Perhaps it will pick up when we get to the backside of the storm, but somehow, I doubt it. We could have gone to work today, and I’ll bet we could go tomorrow, if they hadn’t already shut everything down.
At least around here, I think the forecasters really oversold it. Of course, they are all busy on TV telling us how horrible things are. But they aren’t. Not yet, anyway.
Everything is closed today due to the horrible hurricane (that never showed)….. Its bright and sunny out right now. No rain, no wind, just a nice day. Good thing we have this state of emergency going on…...
^^^It was the luck of the draw. I have a friend coming over soon to take a shower and store her frozen foods in my freezer. Her power went off yesterday at 6:00PM; the wind lifted off her chimney cap and several loose bricks. Luckily they blew into the siding and not her large picture glass windows.
She lives four miles away from me.
Would you have been happier with a half-hearted preparation and then serious damage?
@gailcalled Yes, I’ve wanted to see some serious weather for the better part of my life and every time a “big” storm comes they hype the shit outta it and then its just nothing.
@uberbatman: Where are you living? If you had stayed in NJ (am I remembering correctly) you would have seen lots of really serious weather.
Im in south jersey about 25 min from the coast. Like I said, it was pretty boring over here. I know the coast got hit hard but once it got inland it seems to have died off completely. My house got hit….with pine needles and leaves…
^^Do you have time to drive to the coast and see what happened?
Atlantic City got whopped.
@gailcalled As far as I know, parkway and expressway are still closed so I probably wont be able to get out there for a while. I saw some pictures online though. Boardwalk got destroyed (which is probably a good thing) but IMO its not the same seeing the destruction after the fact as it is seeing it happen. Ah well, I’ll see a kick ass storm eventually.
It is kind of strange that the shorelines got hit hard. Low-lying Manhattan got completely swamped. But the hurricane force winds that were supposed to blow this far inland only became 40 mph gusts, at most.
I think we got a lot of rain, but the only leak we found seemed to be coming from our furnace. That’s weird. But we’ve spent a lot of money in recent years making the basement more waterproof and it held up to this storm like a champ.
Anyway, I think living in a city tends to divert bad weather. The heat islands certainly have an affect. Snow seems to move around us. Maybe rain does, too. Only heat stays here, which is a bitch in summer.
We got hit pretty bad here but nothing compared to how Ocean City got hit. As a whole, though, everything has settled down, though there is still a lot of flooding in certain areas. A massive old tree on campus came down during the storm and blocked a parking lot, but that’s about the worst of the damage on campus.
@uberbatman- You may have been on the south-to-east side of the storm, which gets the least damage. Consider yourself lucky.
They “hype the shit out of it” because even a system that huge is unpredictable. The way it picked up speed and a couple turns it took as it approached shore could not have been forecast. I have friends who barely escaped with their lives as a five foot high wall of water came down their already flooded street.
Obama and his socialist-Muslim wind machines created Sandy for his cheap political gain. Luckily, the NWS resisted the Obuma dictatorship and refused to rename this storm Mitt. ;-)
@tom_g Oh. Wow. That is hilarious.
@tom_g I was joking about that yesterday. There was just a program on Discovery Channel a couple days ago about conspiracy theory and weather manipulation. Its kinda funny/sad how many people believe this sort of thing…
I am ok. Tree fell down on garage and took out back fence but not too bad. No power or phone. Stayed with friends for two nights, at BIL’s last night and expect my ex will stay the next few nights. I have felt very vulnerable and still shaky. Haven’t heard news of some firends yet but I assume they are ok.
Just got power back way downtown in Manhattan this Saturday morning.
No running water yet but the building staff are working hard on that.
This storm was far worse in NYC than Irene or the nor’easter in ‘92. Storm surge came up to the front of the building I live in. The worst I’ve seen previously in the past 24 years was up to a block away.
Our little old car is usually parked five levels underground nearby and we decided to get it out Monday afternoon. The garage was full of water up to street level.
We had filled our two tubs with water Monday and that lasted well for cooking, minimal washing and conservative flushing.
Our gas stove stilled worked but had to be lit manually.
Our biggest concern as the temperature dropped suddenly after the storm passed was for our parrot who prefers it around 70 F. While it was in mid-60s in the apartment it was not so bad, she has a nice down coat under the gorgeous irridescent green top feathers, but it was around 60 this morning. If power had not come back on we were considerring taking her to our vets for boarding.
@dabbler
My concern is that the severity of storms is increasing. NY and NJ are both going to have to deal with more storms like Sandy. The whole tri state and world will have more storms like Sandy. All cities and towns by the sea are at greatest risk.
We are fortunate that the tree limbs landed on my roof outside my window. If the window had broken my family may have been killed.
@philosopher Indeed, the long range issues are barely being discussed.
There is a proposal to put three large storm gates on New York Harbor – but huge investments like that will take place in only areas that can afford it, and there really aren’t any proposals for what to do in plenty of places that will simply be exposed to greater storm effects in the future.
Building codes will have to reflect greater awareness and preparedness, but the bigger picture is that we’ll all need to know more about what to do to prepare for and respond to storms.
@dabbler
Your right of course. Many people still refuse to accept that this is reality. My R Wing brother in law is one of them. This is not about Politics. It is about the survival of human beings.
Many life’s here in Staten Island were lost. I am very sad about this.
The survival of human beings is what politics is all about. They are the same thing, I’m afraid. To ensure our survival, we must cooperate, and the only way to cooperate is to make decisions together. Otherwise known as politics.
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