Hurricane Sandy and East Coast - anyone preparing yet?

[talulabelle]

We are right smack in the eye of the storm right now..it is very eerie how it has quieted. I can't believe we have been experiencing g this all dayand have just made it to the halfway point...I am not looking forward to the next 12 hrs ...or more since they forcasters have said it is stalled over us.

 

[S. C.]

We are right smack in the eye of the storm right now..it is very eerie how it has quieted. I can't believe we have been experiencing g this all dayand have just made it to the halfway point...I am not looking forward to the next 12 hrs ...or more since they forcasters have said it is stalled over us.

Stay safe!

 

[bas71873]

Central VA is much calmer this AM. Can't see outside, but we never lost power (thankfully) and really didn't have the really high winds and driving rain that they thought we were going to get. It has been raining since Sunday and very breezy, with occassional gusts, but I think we were spared. School is out today though.

My brother is in CT (stationed at the CG acadamy and I know they lost power about 3:00 PM yesterday) and I have family in Manahawkn (sp?) NJ and Baltimore. They've been checking in on FB and were without power, but OK.

Sending our best to everyone in the Northeast as they assess the damage today. DH is supposed to head to NY on Thursday to finish cleaning out his apartment and get his winter clothes since his next assignment is taking him to Chicago.

Stay safe everyone!

 

[Christine]

Well, for my area (northern VA) this storm did not live up to our local news hype. I never had a flicker of the lights. We had very strong winds starting at around 6PM. I woke up at 3AM and it was very quiet. We are just having rain now. I don't even hear any wind. I'm glad.

I feel reallly bad for those on the coastline. Ocean City, MD looks like it was devastated.

 

[hulagirl87]

Well, for my area (northern VA) this storm did not live up to our local news hype. I never had a flicker of the lights. We had very strong winds starting at around 6PM. I woke up at 3AM and it was very quiet. We are just having rain now. I don't even hear any wind. I'm glad.

I feel reallly bad for those on the coastline. Ocean City, MD looks like it was devastated.

I agree. While it was very rainy and windy here and our power did go off for a moment at 3am, the news definitely hyped it up for our area. I haven't looked outside yet to see if anything has blown over, but I'm thinking we are ok.

I looked at pictures of NYC this morning and it is intense! I'm hoping that for all those affected that they aren't without power for long, that their homes aren't too damaged and that they stay safe and dry

 

[mdsoccermom]

I have not looked outside yet, but holy cow, that was some wind in the middle of the night!

 

[mamamary]

I cannot believe that we did not lose power. Half my county is currently without power. Wind was very intense last night. Rain seemed heavy but I thought it would be much worse - although I thought they said our area got over 7 inches. I need to check that out. Just had my dog out in the yard and tons of branches are down but luckily all our big trees are still standing. The lawn is just totally waterlogged.

My family is up in NY city so I am anxious to talk to them in a little bit to see how they made out.

 

[bellanotte10]

Metro Boston has some heavy duty rain going on, but everything sounds like its quieted down up here.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

OMG! Are you guys seeing the tanker that washed up on Staten Island?

BTW...Here in Schenectady we got pretty much nothing. A little wind, very little rain. We lucked out! I'll continue to think of those who were not so lucky.

 

[violetrose]

Well, for my area (northern VA) this storm did not live up to our local news hype. I never had a flicker of the lights. We had very strong winds starting at around 6PM. I woke up at 3AM and it was very quiet. We are just having rain now. I don't even hear any wind. I'm glad.

I feel reallly bad for those on the coastline. Ocean City, MD looks like it was devastated.

I agree it was not as bad as it could have been but I don't know that we should call it hype considering what could have happened and what did happen on the Jersey shore and in Manhattan.

 

[Christine]

I agree it was not as bad as it could have been but I don't know that we should call it hype considering what could have happened and what did happen on the Jersey shore and in Manhattan.

Definitely not hype for the shore areas, but I don't think the news can help itself. I had to stop watching because they were just being so over the top. They really try to scare people.

 

[monkeybug]

Definitely not hype for the shore areas, but I don't think the news can help itself. I had to stop watching because they were just being so over the top. They really try to scare people.

I'm actually kind of glad they scare people! Here in SE Virginia everyone around us told us the news hypes things and it's never that bad, but the news concerned us enough that we prepared for the worst in spite of what we were told. I imagine that same sentiment is repeated all up and down the coast when a hurricane is forecast, "Oh, it's just a little wind" was probably heard in Jersey and NYC on more than one occasion before this storm hit.
This was a destructive storm, and all though all we had here was flooding (and wind and rain, but no damage from either of those) I'm not one bit upset by they hype. Forecasting the landfall of a hurricane is not an exact science (as evidenced by how many times the models changed their minds) and this storm was not a typical hurricane. The news made it sound scary because it was indeed scary, and everyone in the potential path needed to be prepared.
We've lived in a lot of different places, and been through blizzards and (really) destructive wind and rain storms, and I can tell you that no matter what, there are always people saying "it's just a bunch of hype", and laughing or making fun of people for stocking up for "just a little rain" or "just a little snow". Sadly for those people sometimes it's not.

 

[Pixiedust34]

We are fine. I am amazed and so grateful that we have power! We do have water in the basement, but not as much as expected. We had wind gusts to 80 MPH and debris of some kind hit the house throughout the night. Once it's daylight and safe, we'll go out and inspect. We're still having wind gusts throughout today, but 'only' 40 MPH. It's going to rain throughout the day so I'm expecting more water in the basement, but that's minor compared to what could have been.

So glad the neighbors' trees withstood the storm! As of last night, many of our friends did not have power and I imagine there are trees down all over the area and some flooding in our area.

The storm was not overhyped. It was a big storm for the Mid-Atlantic and New England areas. Although we surprisingly have power, we're glad we prepared for a long outage just in case.

 

[GraceMonica]

I come to update!

Yesterday after I left work, my mom and I stopped at a 7-eleven. We got 7 different kinds of chips. It was awesome.

We came home and snacked a little.

We unplugged just about all of our major electronics because we didn't want them to surge.

Our power flickered a few times, but nothing major.

My older sister and I started playing card games (in anticipation of the power going out.) My younger sister woke up from a nap and decided to join us! It was very very windy all night and the rain was still coming down hard.

My oldest sister wanted to skype with us, to see how we're doing, so we did that for a while! (She now lives in Texas...which is having a cold snap!)

We did not lose our power, but the neighbors directly across the street did. In our county everyone is serviced by the same electric company (and the government allows this monopoly!) So they're just on a different line. Some storms our side of the street goes out, and other storms the ones across from us goes out.

I expect to see extension cords running across the street today if they haven't gotten it back already.

Im reading BGE's (electric company) outage list on their website and it's just below 200,000 homes out. That's a lot of people!

Im thankful we never lost power and that none of our trees fell. Im reading facebook and seeing so many posts of people struggling!

I don't like that Sandy decided to lighten up. Now I have to go to work tonight! Boo! At least I have off Wednesday and Thursday!

(I wonder if we're going to have a halloween party still? Hmm! I hope so!)

Be safe everyone!

 

[lovin'fl]

Went to bed around midnight...the wind, at that point, had started to slow down a bit. Woke to power, a dry basement and relative calm outside. My dogs finally wanted to go out. I was extremely surprised, but very very grateful, that we didn't get any water in the basement. There was a storm about a year and a half ago, not nearly as bad as this, that we woke to find knee deep water in the basement. We've since put new windows in (well windows), so that really must have been the problem. We do have tree limbs in the yard and tons of wet soggy leaves, but no trees down anywhere on my street.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those that were hit hard...the coastal communities and NY and NJ.

 

[SaraJayne]

OMG! Are you guys seeing the tanker that washed up on Staten Island?

BTW...Here in Schenectady we got pretty much nothing. A little wind, very little rain. We lucked out! I'll continue to think of those who were not so lucky.

This one?

 

[valeriemouse]

Coastal NY community here. Storm was NOT overhyped. Praying for the half of my town south of Montauk that is currently sitting underwater.

I for one am glad newscasters get crazy about storms. Scaring people into leaving their house probably saved many lives.

 

[Soldier's*Sweeties]

This one?

That's the one!

Coastal NY community here. Storm was NOT overhyped. Praying for the half of my town south of Montauk that is currently sitting underwater.

I for one am glad newscasters get crazy about storms. Scaring people into leaving their house probably saved many lives.

I agree. If people don't want to watch the coverage then they don't have to. But better to be safe than sorry.

 

[SaraJayne]

That's the one!


I agree. If people don't want to watch the coverage then they don't have to. But better to be safe than sorry.

Every time I watch coverage of a hurricane, I'm always awed by the great power of nature.

 

[KarenB]

I cannot believe that we did not lose power. Half my county is currently without power. Wind was very intense last night. Rain seemed heavy but I thought it would be much worse - although I thought they said our area got over 7 inches. I need to check that out. Just had my dog out in the yard and tons of branches are down but luckily all our big trees are still standing. The lawn is just totally waterlogged.

About the same for me here in central PA. It was so weird last night when the wind was whipping-I could hear it blowing at the front of the house and actually hear it move around the house and slam the back. That happened about 10 times. About an hour ago, we were told that the center of the storm is about an hour south of us. Sounds like we still have some heavy winds until this afternoon.