Hurricane Sandy and East Coast - anyone preparing yet?

[BernardandMissBianca]

We are preparing. And watching the weather closely.
Mom brought wood in at her house.
I'm doing laundry now. We have plenty of food but I need water and bread.

Will fill the bath tub Saturday night.

I need to get gas and propane for the RV, we'll sleep in that if there is no power.

 

[JoiseyMom]

Well I always have non perishables in the house. DH and I will move the chairs from the pool area up to the enclosed deck, and we will make sure we have gas for the generator we bought after Irene. As long as we have power, we are good to go.

 

[luvwinnie]

Yep! We underestimated Irene and ended up with 6 ft of water in the basement and leaving our home with the help of the fire dept. in a motorized raft. We lost everything we had down there (way too much). We're getting out the little we keep down there now (Christmas stuff, some clothing, etc.) and we now have a generator, thank goodness.

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

we are up north, not so much...

tomorrow we were going to do the yard pick up and get out the Halloween stuff anyway.

We normally really do it up for Halloween, but we are thinking we are going to be forced to scale back because we don't what is coming yet. Might wait to see what they say Sunday to decide whether or not to go all out and hang the stuff up on the second floor. High winds would mean we would have to get back up there and take it all back down at the last minute.

 

[lucas]

I'm in South FL, just got this in an email at work:

For Those Of You On Floridas East Coast: Sandy is expected to affect much of Floridas east coast with tropical storm conditions from Palm Coast and Daytona Beach southward to Miami and Florida City starting after midnight tonight and continuing through all of Friday and into Friday night. In this area, expect sustained winds of 35 to 45 mph with gusts to 60 to 70 mph especially right on the beaches. Additionally, rain will be on the increase later today and especially tonight with rain, heavy at times, expected across much of the east coast of Florida through Friday. Total rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches can be expected. Finally, a storm surge of 1 to 2 feet, especially at the time of high tide can be expected along the entire east coast of Florida from late tonight through Friday.

 

[mamamary]

We haven't done anything yet. Just waiting and watching for now. We plan on cleaning out our gutters later and I'm hoping by tom. there will be some updated info. If it seems like it will come by my way I will do the necessary preparations.

 

[MdmMim]

Tested the generator today and all is well.

Ours did its weekly exercise right on time this morning. Ready and waiting...

 

[NikitaZee]

I booked a local Hilton Garden Inn that I know has a generator. (Norwalk, CT.) It's about 15-20 mins from us. I guess you can call and ask who has backup power? Good luck!

That's what I just finished doing . The closest two hotels didn't have generators - but the third one did, so I booked Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday just in case. We have enough Marriott Rewards points to pay for the first two nights, which is nice. And we can cancel any night by 6pm with no penalty. I'd rather have the reservation and cancel it, than be stuck scrambling around, moving from hotel to hotel with three kids, like we did last year.

 

[3boymthr]

Right now we're scheduled for another Halloween storm. Last year we were without power for a week. Lost all the food in the fridge including some stuff you wouldn't expect like pickles, etc., which went moldy. So... In addition to cleaning the house, making sure there are no dirty clothes and making sure everything I own is ironed I'm also going to be cleaning out the fridge and freezer. Over the next few days I'm going to cook up everything that I can especially the meat and refreeze what I can in preparation of having to reheat it on the grill next week.

 

[Shutterbug]

Whats interesting is a major cold front will be moving into the area at same time, could be a chance of major snow storm out of this as well.

 

[LittleStinkerbelle]

Just got back from the grocery store with lots of water and non-perishables. DH said it's too early for ice but I noticed that the store had a huge supply of bagged ice on hand - looked like a bigger section of the freezer than normal.

 

[mikehn]

I just stopped in home depot earlier, generators are already sold out.

 

[klacey1]

I booked a local Hilton Garden Inn that I know has a generator. (Norwalk, CT.) It's about 15-20 mins from us. I guess you can call and ask who has backup power? Good luck!

My new office is right next to that hotel! I think I might book us there, too, just in case. Thanks for the tip!

 

[klacey1]

I will ask this here since there seems to be a few locals chiming in. My flight leaves tomorrow at 8am from Philly to Orlando. We should be landing in Orlando around 10:30am tomorrow morning. That seems like the worst time to fly in right now. Would we be better off pushing the flight up to tonight or pushing it back to Sunday or Monday?

I am also flying to Orlando tomorrow morning for the weekend (9:30 landing time). According to Accuweather, Orlando will be fine by then.

 

[czycropper]

I'm in Somerset County, NJ and when it rains alot our town basically becomes an island since it's surrounded by rivers. OEM has already issued an "alert" to all homes near the rivers and low lying areas.

We live higher up and have a french drain as well as a pump and small generator so I'm hoping we'll be fine - we were for Irene as well as last Halloween when just less than a mile away some of friends didn't have electricity for 4 days (we're with PSEG and they have Jersey Power).

Hope everyone stays dry!

 

[ckay87]

Here's what our local weather man had to say on Facebook (from the Lehigh Valley, PA):
Ed here: The new GFS model just came in....and the models are coming into more alignment now. And if they verify, we will be looking at a MAJOR storm...likely historic depending on final track. We may be looking at a storm that could reshape the coastline somewhere from Maryland, Delaware, NJ up into Long Island.

 

[HippieChickadee]

I'm anxiously awaiting updates of Sandy's path. We were really hurt around here from Irene (a place where Hurricanes just DON'T COME) and now they have Sandy on the same path.

 

[Piglet4Ever]

We live in Northern VA outside of DC. We are stocking up on water, batteries and food items today just to be on the safe side. We have a bad track record of losing power around here for little to no reason, so we are not taking chances with this storm. So fun I'll just keeping dreaming about our upcoming trip to WDW!!

 

[S. C.]

I'm in South FL, just got this in an email at work:

For Those Of You On Floridas East Coast: Sandy is expected to affect much of Floridas east coast with tropical storm conditions from Palm Coast and Daytona Beach southward to Miami and Florida City starting after midnight tonight and continuing through all of Friday and into Friday night. In this area, expect sustained winds of 35 to 45 mph with gusts to 60 to 70 mph especially right on the beaches. Additionally, rain will be on the increase later today and especially tonight with rain, heavy at times, expected across much of the east coast of Florida through Friday. Total rainfall amounts of 1 to 2 inches can be expected. Finally, a storm surge of 1 to 2 feet, especially at the time of high tide can be expected along the entire east coast of Florida from late tonight through Friday.

Stay safe everyone

 

[mamamary]

Here's what our local weather man had to say on Facebook (from the Lehigh Valley, PA):
Ed here: The new GFS model just came in....and the models are coming into more alignment now. And if they verify, we will be looking at a MAJOR storm...likely historic depending on final track. We may be looking at a storm that could reshape the coastline somewhere from Maryland, Delaware, NJ up into Long Island.

Yikes. Guess I'll be prepping tomorrow.