I am still in an armory with no power. Went to a Red Cross shelter for a hot shower. Warren County was not hit nearly as bad as a lot of the state. But it still looks awful. Trees everywhere. No power to a lot of people. If its this bad here the rest has to be awful.
Right after posting this (10-29-2012, 05:51 PM), we lost power. Got it back about two hours ago. The storm came about two hours sooner than expected and was out much quicker also. Hardly any rain despite predictions of as much as 8-10".
My brother, a few blocks away never lost power. My daughter another few blocks away, got her power back two days ago. Both have no cable internet/TV/phone services but I do. I hadn’t been able to keep up with news except for a couple of visits to Lowe’s customer WiFi.
When I did get out, the North Shore of the island was pretty devastated with large trees downing wires all over the place. More roads than not, I had to turn back and find another way to my destinations. I haven’t been to the South Shore but understand the flooding was/is devastating. I live in the middle and we are much better off. I feel for those that have yet to get their power back as the temps are going into the thirties tonight.
The lines for gasoline are incredible, four hour waits. Five days without power stinks, but we personally were lucky. My letter carrier said they told him he could expect power back November 11th! Had the predicted rains happened, the destruction and recovery would have been much worse. They are predicting a Nor’easter for Wednesday.
Still no power in my corner of Maryland since Monday. All the resources went to NJ and NYC, but we got hit here worse than the summer derecho.
Where in MD are you? Around here (Ellicott City/Columbia) it really wasn’t bad.
Western or Eastern Maryland? I live in Howard County (Central Maryland below Baltimore) and didn’t have any problem whatsoever, but I usually don’t. Western MD got hit by blizzard and the Eastern Shore got the brunt of the hurricane, though apparently not as bad as they were expecting because it came ashore north of us (but then NJ got hit hard).
Far Northern Montgomery County. Not a huge amount of damage, but it blew out transformers in my neighborhood, which Potomac Edison can’t seem to get fixed. I’m not suffering like some people in NJ or NY, but it is business for usual for most of the DC region, and I have been in limbo for almost a week, along with my neighbors.
I was wondering–have all affected areas been identified yet? I didn’t hear of Staten Island residents for the first two days after the storm and the pictures I’ve seen are just as devastating as every where else I’ve seen. I’m concerned that there are other areas that haven’t been discovered yet.
My dad heard from his cousin last night! 
He had had the wrong cell phone number for them, and their landline was down of course. They called him last night.
They’re fine, their own house is fine, had no flooding. They actually got power back yesterday.
The beachfront rental property they own, not so much. Their original plans were to leave for Florida this coming Wednesday :smack: but now they’re going to stay on the island for now to try to get stuff straightened out. So good to hear from them.
We got power back yesterday. We were out 5 days total. We’re lucky because there are still people in our apartment complex without power. It took until this afternoon to get the house nice and toasty. All of the food in our fridge is spoiled, my husband is going to clean it out tonight, but we don’t have anything to replace it yet and I’m getting really sick of eating crackers (seriously - sick. I need some protein.)
Today is my first day off in days. I’m exhausted & not at 100%. My family only got its power back last night and our internet just came back today, although I’ve helped more than a million others get theirs first.
I won’t talk about how FOX and its supporters are doing Nothing to get more gas here & stop the lines (and the expected price increases. Its just “good business” right? :rolleyes: )
I personally know that people are working as hard as they effing can, to the exclusion of their own families, to get power up. The Grand Canyon isn’t wide enough for what I’d shove up FOX’s collective ass for this LIE.
The last good thing that came out of FOX supporters was the "V"chip. Its Perfect for blocking all of their networks and advertisers.
Have you checked your local/state emergency relief info sources for where food distribution might be happening? There might be info about them at a FEMA disaster recovery center near you, perhaps, if you can’t find anything through your local sources.
For next time, canned beans are great, convenient protein. They store for a long time, are cheap, and are easily used in everyday cooking as well. Canned tuna is good too, if more expensive.
Count Blucher - there are people out there who know how hard you’re working. Thank you. I’m not among the affected; I live in Chicago, and in 2011 we had numerous, multi-day outages all over the area. One million+ without power at some points. People worked their asses off to get power restored, and I sympathized with those who ended up being without power for several days, but so many of them seemed to be acting like obviously everyone sat on their asses and did nothing that whole time.
Still no power. But things are slowly getting better. Gas lines are shorter. More Supermarkets are open. Our little generator being run for about 8 hours a day was not enough to keep the fridge cold. We were doing OK but then it got to warm. The house is warm except for first thing in the morning with what we’re doing. We got cell service back this morning.
I got a hot shower at a friends house today. That was a huge luxury.
I might invest in a larger generator. I plan to fight/beg/plead with the gas company to hook us up. We have a gas main going down our street but they can’t/won’t hook us up. If I can get gas, I will get a large generator and hook it up to the house. No stove, no oven and especially no hot water really sucks.
At least we have a BBQ and a wood stove. They help and the little generator has kept electronics charged and the house warm.
I got hold of my contact at the animal shelter today and despite our foster kitten being over 3 lbs we were asked to keep her at least 2 more weeks. The kids were happy but I am a little sad as it could decrease her chances of adoption. She’s a great little kitten, though she drves our older cat nuts.
I’m off to work tomorrow as is my wife. Both of our offices are back up. Schools out until Wednesday at least. My brother will be running the generator for me tomorrow and maybe by Tuesday we’ll finally be back to normal.
I know we’re lucky that the house is fine and we’re fine and we had heat but this really sucks anyway.
A lot of the devasted areas weren’t within the evacuation zones which were very narrow and didn’t even include some coastal areas like hard hit bayfront beaches of Brooklyn.
I think when it is all said and done this will be the most expensive natural disaster ever, worse than Katrina…The affected area is both much larger and much more densely populated than that affected by Katrina…for example 8 miullion customers lost power durin Sandy vs 1 million durin Katrina…a week later more than a million are STILL powerless.
You’ll be happy to know someone over in the GQ thread says generators are just a status symbol.
This is an important thing to bear in mind – the mandatory evacuation zones were defined by the various SEMAs based on the existing floodline maps and it’s likely that was done years ago anyway.
Count Blucher: The Public Utility people are one group that does not get properly appreciated for their service.
There will be some individuals who speak from a sense of entitlement to have the lights back on, but a whole lot more are honestly ignorant about the nature and scale of the damage beyond their local area or about the factors involved in restoring normalcy. They see Lower Manhattan get powered up and feel neglected, but Lower Manhattan infrastructure was mostly just flooded in parts, not washed/blown away.
There spoke a man who did not go 5 days without power during Irene.
I don’t think anyone needs to apologize for their situation not being worse. 
Glad to hear you and yours are okay.
I remembered today watching a TED talk by the two young ladies who started the Recovers.orgwebsite and wanted to check if it was being used post Sandy.
Looks like there are community sites for Astoria, Staten Island, Red Hook and Lower East Side. If you are in one of these, check in if there is something you can offer or something you need.
Great post/sig match !!!