Sandy

[fjimp]

How about a time out for a prayer for all of those who have lost life, loved ones, property, livelihood and perhaps a roof from over their heads. Jim

[swampgator]

From experience of 40 years of hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, I totally understand what they are going through and my heart goes out to all of them. It's a lot of hard work cleaning up and putting things back in place. And, you have to clean up much of it without water and sewage for a couple of days. Then when you get water and gas back, you still don't have electricity for several days. Depending on where you live and conditions, it can be a week to 10 days before electricity gets restored and then only if your residence is safe. Gas fired generators if you can afford one and can get the natural/propane gas to get one running. Getting a cold shower can be a wonderful luxury. But, those folks in the sleet and snow may be better prepared for such disasters as they do have that experience every few years.

And, on a brighter side, during clean up, you can collect some good wood for lumber projects. Again, my sympathies for all who are in this storm. And, we can make contributions to Red Cross as they were helpful and fed us for the first couple of days after hurricane Ivan in 2004. And, prayers are always appropriate.

[dforeman]

Well, I think most made out ok in this storm. I only heard a couple of instances where there was a tragic loss of life. One was down in Montgomery County where a tree fell onto a house and one accident due to hydroplaning. I did see one episode in the news that a block of houses on the New Jersey Shore burned due to a gas leak. Thankfully no loss of life though. Now it is just the big clean-up and dealing with the flood waters.

[fredsheldon]

Be glad you weren't in Corpus Christi in 1970 like I was when Celia made a direct hit with winds up to 210 mph. We were told to stay put that it was a weak storm and we would just be clogging up the highways. When we woke up in the middle of the night it had developed into a Category 4 storm. We were lucky to make it out alive, something I hope to never experience again. We only lost the roof on half of our house, over 90% of all structures substained heavy damage. We were without power for over a month. All the main transmission towers were blown down coming into the city. No running water, but were able to run the fuel pumps at the gas stations with lawn edgers and fan belts

Fred

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/crp/?n=celia1970

[dforeman]

If I can help it, no thanks. But, when Mother Nature sends her fury we usually do not have much of a choice.

The lower lying areas and along the shore seem to have gotten the worst of the storm (mostly to be expected). There was a lot of damage in Ocean City. However, a friend sent me a link to photos of the 1962 Ash Wednesday Storm. There was definitely a lot less damage this go around. Although this will probably cost a lot more to clean up.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 803&Ref=PH

[swampgator]

If I can help it, no thanks. But, when Mother Nature sends her fury we usually do not have much of a choice.

The lower lying areas and along the shore seem to have gotten the worst of the storm (mostly to be expected). There was a lot of damage in Ocean City. However, a friend sent me a link to photos of the 1962 Ash Wednesday Storm. There was definitely a lot less damage this go around. Although this will probably cost a lot more to clean up.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dl ... 803&Ref=PH

I have contended for about 40 years that only businesses should build along the shores of low lying areas like along most of the Gulf of Mexico. When these disasters occur, the insurance rates skyrocket for a few years to recover the costs of reimbursements and they gradually fall again. Only a few businesses should be allowed to build there and they should have money set aside to cover for themselves rather than taping into the insurance industry pots. But, that's just my 2 cents worth.

Where I live is about 2 miles inland, 96 feet above sea level and I can't get homeowner's insurance. First, the house was too old, needed new plumbing and wiring. Done! Now, we need flood insurance with a premium of $5K per year plus regular homeowner's coverage. So, putting back my own $5K and holding it in the bank. Won't have to deal with an insurance company who may claim that it was flooding from the rain rather than the roof being ripped off and rain pouring in. And, then you can be in court for 3 or 4 years trying to get the insurance to pay. By the time you pay court costs and lawyer fees, you've burned up more money than you can recoup from the insurance company. That's what happened with Ivan in 2004. Many folks moved away after cleaning up the debris. Empty lots now sit where houses used to stand. Wish I knew a good workable answer.

[wannabewoodworker]

Well been a while since I have posted here. I look in every now and then but have been a bit busy with other things in life lately. I live right on a salt pond and less than a half mile from the beach in Milford CT. and we got walloped but good. My wife and I were very lucky and were spared from the terrible fate some others have found after this storm. My town alone has lost over 100 homes most right on the beach. The storm surge and waves is really what caused the biggest damage. But the wind was also pretty damaging as well. It was no fun riding this out late Sunday into Monday and I hope to never have to do it again.

It was truly terrfying to sit through this thing feeling totally helpless and worrying whether or not flood waters were going to fill our home. We do not have flood insurance and cannot get any (long story) so I was stressed out to the very limit. But thankfully about 1.5 hrs. before the midnight high tide the winds changed direction and the water started to recede even before high tide had reached it's peak. The damage and devastation in NY City and NJ is mind boggling and looks like a carbon copy of Katrina. 111 homes burned to the ground in Breezy Point Brooklyn. My guess is thousands of homes along the shore in NJ are completely destroyed and not repairable. Same thing in Brooklyn and Staten Island. The flooding I think is what really took most by surprise. There were places that have never flooded before that were under feet of water.

Anyway my wife and I made through unscathed and we are very thankful to the man upstairs for sparing us any heartache and pain. Two storms in less than 13 months is really too many and I am good to go for the rest of my born days. Unfortunately I think that this is going to be more the norm than the exception and there will be many more storms along the east coast in the coming years. There is a weather website that is saying we are in a pattern just like back in the 50's where the Atlantic is very warm and the Pacific is very cold which sets us up for frequent batterings by Mother Nature. If I have to go through this one more time I think I will have had enough and will relocate to somewhere the ocean can't reach me easily.

[wannabewoodworker]

Our very good friend lives in the prominent house with the cedar shake shingles in the middle left part of the frame here. He has a beautiful Powermatic woodshop in the bottom floor of this house and it looks as though he did not suffer any major damage but I could not get to his place as you can see the road was still under 2 ft. of water a day after the storm.



Of course there were tons of trees downed by this storm this is just one



And then there were many images of this imagine waking up the next morning with a cabin cruiser sitting on top of your car

[judaspre1982]

===============================

[backhertz]

The eye of the storm went directly over our home. We are 60 miles from the Jersey coast. We had the trees removed from around our home several years ago to accommodate a solar power installation. I had to remove any potential sources of shade- a huge oak and a swamp maple. Unfortunately my next door neighbor suffered damage as the result of a huge tulip poplar shade tree in their front yard.

The initial winds from Sandy caused one of the two large stalks of the tree to come down almost straight down as it sheared off. The limb was tangled up in the power & telephone wires and didn't go far except to block the road. Later on, the winds appeared to stop and there was calm. It was too dark to see the storm eye, just an eerie quiet.

It was calm enough as the eye moved slowly overhead for our township to send crews with chainsaws to open up the road. There were other trees down in the neighborhood, so no attempt was made to restore power, just to keep the roads clear for emergency response vehicles and ensure hanging wires were not live. After the storm eye passed over, the winds returned in the opposite direction.

The stronger opposite winds resulted in the remaining stalk breaking off the same tree during the late night. It sailed across their yard and ending up going through the rear window of their new BMW sedan. The car appeared to be out of harm's way, but because the trees up here still bear their leaves, this stalk/limb flew/was carried into the rear window of their new car. The remaining stalk appeared okay the night before, but Mother Nature had other plans. The best news? The house was spared.

The NJ governor is notorious for his candor and assertiveness. He gave the order to evacuate the barrier islands off of NJ and amazingly, most people heeded his order. The governor had followed up with sending state police out to ensure people had indeed heeded the evacuation order. The really sick and sad part was that some looters took no time in getting to work. They were stupid enough to get caught by the network news crews and filmed stealing copper and other people's property in these evacuated areas before the hurricane ever hit. But, again, the governor was prepared along with the beach towns in allowing only home owners with proper ID where it is safe, otherwise the people are turned away. Many areas are just strewn with the owner's possessions.

Tomorrow morning (Sat) there are many areas which will be seen for the first time since the storm. One of these beach towns is covered with scattered house, boats, cars, whatever you can think of. Townspeople in the worst hit areas have been warned and I believe with all the media coverage, people are either relieved or heart broken as they've seen whether their homes still exist or not.

What have I learned? I'm going to buy a small generator. A friend of mine just purchased a whole-house generator (200-amp system) that was delivered last Friday and it remains in crates in his garage until he obtains permits and has it wired into his home for about $6K or more. The ironic thing is, the worst storm to ever hit New Jersey did not result in any power loss to my friend who lives less than 20 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and has an expensive brand new 37 KW generator waiting to be installed. Ouch.

Although a lot of our neighborhood was without power for 42 hours, the power to my home comes off a side-street which never went out, so my house was the only one on our block/neighborhood with power. I went next door to check on my neighbor after I saw the tree in the road. I found him just sitting out in front of his house in the dark looking at the limb blocking the road. I think this was his first major storm. His frown turned to a smile when I handed him an extension cord reel and told him to plug his refrigerator and anything else like a sump pump, TV, lights, etc. So he had power for most of the power outage duration. None of our other neighbors were home or close enough to run overly long extension cords. I figured a long 10-gauge extension cord would handle my one neighbors needs and all was well.

To my knowledge my neighbor simply kept his refrigerator plugged in and other essentials (network, cellphones, lights, TV) into a splitter into the 10-gauge extension cord that I plugged into a 20 amp outlet in my garage. That's only 2.4 KW watts at the most. A lot smaller than the large system my friend was convinced he needed to buy ASAP for his home.

Word of warning. One family used a small generator which they kept outside their home. However it was less than 25 feet. The result, one person is dead and another may have permanent brain damage. The 3rd person will be okay except she will have to care for her daughter who has the brain damage. A public service announcement was to beware of the carbon monoxide hazard of these small generators and ensure they are no closer than 25 feet to a house. A doctor then came on & stated there are an increasing number of deaths in the Northeast due to CO exposure. Having one or more functional CO detectors in your home will help. I have a number of CO/smoke detectors as a result of our home renovation. All are on an AC line and tied to one another. Drives the dogs crazy when the system goes off.

My best wishes to those who are recovering from this storm and hope the nor'easter being forecasted for next week does not pour salt into open wounds as the forecasted storm might follow the same path up the coast. <heavy sigh>

Gasoline rationing has just been announced in NJ. More pictures of the destruction are being released and it is really gut wrenching. I am not sure of the forum rules, but I just thought I'd mention the American Red Cross is reaching out for help.