Hurricane Sandy

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Well I can report from the Boston burbs that things are improving. Our power came back at 11pm in spite of warnings to expect days. Some people in town still out however. I got lucky and as best I can tell none of my trees came down. I have to take a better look when it gets light.

Still cloudy and grey but eerily quiet and calm out there.

Scary situation down in NYC. I have relatives in Queens, Staten Island, LI, norther Jersey and southern CT. Going to be making a lot of calls to make sure all are OK.
 
Still snowing heavy outside 32.

Six inches on ground power and internet is on and off.

Last night was bad a tree fell up above house wind was howling.
 
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Still under blizzard warning till tomorrow.
 
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I don't think the wind has ever blown that hard here for that long of a period. National Grid did a great job keeping the power on. No trees down close to the house, I'm sure there will be some in the woods, but that's a good thing.

My thoughts are with hearth members who didn't do as us. Please let me know if anyone needs help.
 
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I feel bad for the crews. From the looks of what I saw they were out days ahead of the storm, trying to get a jump on it, or some "show of force" to let the public know they were taking things seriously. Problem is, you never really know where it's going to hit, so now these guys are 3 days tired before the lights go out.

I was with a Vermont crew two weeks ago and asked if they were ready for the Winter. The supervisor just laughed and said it's impossible to even keep up with outside plant maint with the crews they're allowed to keep. Everything from pole transfers to tree trimming get put off further and further. I think it's a lot like what Verizon did for 10 years (and continues to do) when they knew fiber/cellular was going to make their copper plant worthless. Their whole plant is now a pille of rat nest. I think the power companies know something big is coming and are waiting for federal bucks. Meanwhile they skim what they can and if the power goes out so be it.
 
What was weird with this one is that they can't get in the buckets when the wind is over 25 miles an hour. It was 35 steady gusting to 55 and pouring rain during the whole time. I just figured it out. Their outage map showed a crew at work at a substation south of here. That was where they fixed it.

On a calm 90 degree day in August it took five hours to get it back. And I thought that was just fine. I wouldn't climb in that bucket and go grab wires if you held a gun to my head.

I've always had the utmost respect for electrical linemen . . . firefighters get all the glory when they make a save . . . but who knows how many firefighters have been saved because of the fast response from a lineman in cutting power to a house or car wreck.
 
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lost power for 13 hours, came on right before wake up time. put a smile on my face.

after one night of power I cant imagine a week+
 
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Thinking about the folks north of us. We are in great shape compared to them.
 
One thing we've got going for us is that it's warm, unseasonably WARM. House dipped about a degree last night in 7 hours without the generator running. If it wasn't for the lack of internet (you know, that thing we never had but now can't do without) I could get by for weeks on 5000 watts or less. No dishwasher or laundry, but we can work with that.

I always do a majority of my clothes shopping when the power goes out.
 
Thinking about the folks north of us. We are in great shape compared to them.

Amen. The news in NY is bad. 80-100 homes burned in the flooded Breezy Point neighborhood of Brooklyn. It looks apocalyptic.
 
Posting from mobile phone

Power is out genny is going but things are really bad outside.

May be last post for a while, phone is slow.
 
We got nowhere near the forecast rainfall amounts. Was windy but not damaging. From what i can see from the house it blew 3 lawn chairs over. Still windy but little rain. Power never went out.
 
We are getting hammerd with high winds heavy rain for 2 days now. Glad I dont live 500 miles to the right. Good Luck East Coast!
 
Disruptions from the storm continue to flow across the country.
We use a Cloud based Phone service from ShoreTel and our phones went down around 10 AM CST.
Apparantely due to the flooding and the power outages the centers ran out of diesel to power their generators.
Other disruptions are being caused by other providers like Verison and ATT also having difficulty.
Cloud based service is fine and dandy but not very stable when compared to regular line based services.
 
not seeing much activity on this list (understandably so), seeing the images of flooding, and reading the post about the man who lost his young son, this is incredibly heartbreaking. For whatever its worth, thoughts and prayers are with all the folks dealing with this storm, the losses, and the aftermath. I hope we never see another one the likes of Sandy.
 
upper third of a willow tree shed all over my roof. the bigger branch broke a window, damaged my roof/eve and destroyed the power meter on the house. Power lines are down in three spots on the street so probably looking at a few days at lease. the snow storm last october had it out for over a week. Talk about bad luck too, a tree service was scheduled to come take down today at 8:30am.
 
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Still no power here. Drove around a bit today. Trees and Wires down everywhere. Lots of roads blocked. I had to cut a fallen tree off my sister's car and deck. Some damage to both. Even saw a motor yacht on the railroad tracks!
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This happened to one our electric co-ops repair crews last night.

“Just as our service tech was crossing an arched bridge over the creek, water torrents picked up the bucket truck and shoved it against the bridge railing,” Hollcroft said in a NOVEC news release. “Water rose past the truck’s door, rising an inch every five minutes. Our man clung to the top of the truck while a co-worker in a truck behind him frantically called 911. Loudoun Fire and Rescue rescued our service tech.”
 
The wind has died down a lot here and the rain at 4:30 this morning was half frozen and coming down hard. It is just a drizzle now ! The power flickered a few times and went out for a bit but is back now. Be safe east coasters !

Pete
 
If you look at the moisture circulation of this thing it comes out of the ocean south of RI, circulates up over New England into Canada, comes down as far West as Chicago then back down to Knoxville before it turns to come up and drizzle on us. Fascinating.
 
We only got about 2 in of rain from the whole thing. Not much wind either. I guess the mountains all around us tamed the beast.
 
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