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Hurricane — 36 Comments

  1. Good luck from a Gulf Coast resident who has to put up with these attacks from Mother Nature on a regular basis. I assume you don’t have to worry about the storm surge sweeping you away or flooding your house. That’s always on my mind, as I live a hundred yards from the water and had little wavelets lapping against the side of my house during Katrina, though I’m a hundred and fifty miles from where it made landfall. Sounds like the winds won’t be extremely bad, as these things go, so maybe a power outage will be the worst of it. I hope your utility company is on the ball. Ours is excellent: I don’t think we’ve been left without power for more than two days after a hurricane in the 20 years I’ve been living here, which have included some serious but not catastrophic storms.

  2. I’m watching “Serial Killer Earth” by the History channel just to identify. It is ideal weather here in Orange County.

    Make sure you have communication ability for emergencies. You should maybe have a generator for back up electricity.

  3. Bad weather tends to reduce Democrat turnout. I root for rain and snow every election.

  4. So, Neo, stay safe, warm, and DRY!

    Here on the Jersey shore, so we are getting ready for the worst as well. (The Garden State Parkway is now tollfree heading northbound, away, from the shore. I’m tempted to go for a drive just for the fun of driving on a toll road for free!)

    Got everything that I might need (always do), but, I went to the library yesterday to check out a few extra books to read by candlelight just in case.

    And, don’t just sit there in the dark, Neo, light a candle for heaven’s sake. (you can still complain about the candle not being bright enough, or being smelly, or whatever.)

  5. Mr. Frank: bad weather, perhaps. But the predictions for Sandy are for much more than bad weather. If the predictions were correct, and Sandy occurred on Election Day, it would mean that most people (Democrat or Republican) would have so much trouble getting to the polls that the votes that would count would mostly be the early voters and the absentee ballots. Early voting tends to strongly favor Democrats.

  6. Mr Frank – that is kind funny! Thanks for the laugh. I could add that is because the dead don’t like rain 😉

    But, If the storm (or some other natural disaster) hit on election day or caused thousands of folks from getting to the polls, then it should be up to the states involved to “reschedule” the elections. Although, I believe the US congress actually controls the date – it should be up to the congressmen from the states affected to lobby their fellow congressman to act quickly to change the date, albeit on a temporary basis.

    This shouldn’t be too hard to do. Afterall, the electors don’t have to report until sometime in December or January if I recall correctly.

  7. There seems to be some redeeming qualities to living in fly-over country (NW Ohio). We may get some rain from the storm. Mostly our weather dangers are tornados, which are very local. and lots of snow, which is pretty, and just waiting a few hours makes life fairly easy.

    Good luck!

  8. The power can be off for 5 days and i’ll still flip the light switch when i walk into the bathroom. 🙂

  9. Praying you (and all in Sandy’s path) stay warm, dry and safe, Neo. Make sure you have any needed med’s/Rx filled. Folks tend to forget those in the rush for food and water.

  10. And it’s BUSH11!!!!111!!1! and CHENEY!!!!11!!!1! steering that hurricane up there! They have The FORCE!

  11. Take care of yourself Neo before, during and after this massive storm. Tree roots could be so inundated that big trees can just topple over from the extra water weight.

    My children are battening the hatches on the upper west side. Will be praying for all those in harms way.

  12. I suspect that one of the reasons Democrats push early voting is to get a bird in the hand because they know their base is less reliable to show up on election day in the face of other distractions.

  13. Could one of you bright Neoneo readers help me out? I understand how power is lost during a storm — power lines are knocked down — but under what circumstances do water or natural gas utilities get disrupted? During the few short-lived power outages that I’ve gone through, I’ve always had power and gas for the stove.

  14. good luck, neo.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Since this blog covers politics, here is a political something to watch for:

    Media will declare Obama’s reaction to the storm to be brilliant; Romney’s reaction to the storm to be horrible. These media declarations will occur no matter what actions are taken by Obama and Romney, respectively.

    We’ve seen the template (and previously discussed it): the financial crisis in Oct 08. No matter how McCain reacted, media were going to say his reaction was horrible. No matter how Obama reacted, media were going to say his reaction was brilliant. It so happened that Obama reacted by doing nothing (sound familiar? Benghazi?). Media declared nothing to be the most brilliant action since Washington defeated the British at Yorktown.

    And so it shall be with Sandy. Unparalled leadership by Barack the Great. The articles will be written: Will Obama’s Brilliant Response to Sandy Win Him the Election?

  15. The political angle to Sandy is that the messiah is going to rearrange his campaign schedule to ‘manage’ the hurricane, but could not stay on task with the crisis at hand in Benghazi and thundered away on AF1 to Vegas for a campaign appearance.

  16. Reticent,

    As a Katrina survivor who went without drinkable water for a week, I can tell you about that. If your water supplier loses power it can not pump water up into the tanks. Pressure slowly drops until you have no running water. That also means you can’t flush toilets. Once the pressure drops there is a threat that the water gets contaminated. Then you can not drink the water when it first comes back. That leads to a boil first warning. If you don’t have a way to boil water, you are out of luck for a few days until the health authorities decide the water is safe.

  17. Mr. Frank, thank you! I guess I should prepare for the worst case scenario and not only have enough potable water on hand for about 10 days, but I think I’ll be filling up the bathtub for toilet flushing, and such.

  18. Good luck Neo. I lost power for almost 2 weeks sitting thru Ike and and a week thru Alicia. Not sure if I would like no heat better than no AC, because you don’t really need heat in Houston. Either way, no fun.
    At least there’s always the inspiring and oh- so-helpful text messages from distant relatives to keep you in a positive mood. If you run short, I can definitely spare some. Take care, make sure you have plenty of scotch and peanut butter. Hope you get a chance to vote.

  19. Very best wishes, neo.

    You are as a friend whom I have not met. Not actually a ^friend^, . . . but you know what I mean. I think/hope.

    Best wishes.

  20. Sorry, I’ve been over at Ace’s most of the day. I just now saw this thread.

    I’m in the Philly suburbs. This thing is coming right up my f*cking driveway. Should be interesting.

    I’m well inland and 300′ above sea level, and there are no rivers or lakes near me. Hopefully my house will be able to withstand the wind, but I don’t believe it’s ever been tested like this before. It was built in 1956, so hopefully they built them sturdier back then. We’ll see.

    I don’t have a laptop or smartphone, so if I disappear for a few days, I’m *probably* OK.

  21. Here’s a good comment from Ticker Forum, by someone who sounds like he knows what he’s talking about:

    http://tickerforum.org/akcs-www?singlepost=3059189

    So if I understand it correctly, the barometric pressure is what is usually seen in a Category 3 hurricane, but since Sandy is extra-tropical, the storm’s power is more spread out and not concentrated in high winds near the eye.

    And it could strengthen even further.

    (That’s an excellent discussion thread, by the way.)

  22. As Southpaw points out, power loss in the winter is much more serious than in hot weather. Even if you have a gas furnace you need electricity to run the blower. In extreme cases broken pipes can be a problem.

  23. Just to give you an idea of how large an area Sandy is affecting, the NWS is predicting waves up to 33 feet in Lake Michigan along with 60+ knot winds.

  24. With tornadoes and hurricanes the path of destruction is usually fairly narrow which means you can move perpendicular to it to get to supplies. This Sandy event is so widespread that getting to areas that are operating normally could be tough. Fill your gas tanks in advance because gas pumps don’t work without electricity.

    It’s a good idea to have a stash of cash in small bills. Credit cards don’t work with no power.

  25. Mr Frank and Reticent and Neo,
    not only does power prevent pumping of fresh water, it also prevents pumping of waste water aka sewage, which tends to fill up the pipes if you know what I mean. And even though there may be gasoline and food available as it is trucked in after the storm, nobody has power to pump the gasoline or refrigerate food. Natural gas tends to be less sensitive, but as Mr Frank points out, you don’t run a furnance blower without electricity.
    In my case, losing sewage pumps was the only reason we got power back when we did- it was deemed a health hazard for the neighborhood manholes to be overflowing. These storms turn your otherwise normal suburban neighborhood into a primitive camp pretty fast.
    Neo I truly hope you avoid anything serious and stay healthy, and if possible, go stay with a relative. Before a storm, nobody ever believes anything will happen to them, nevertheless, there are casualties after every storm like this.

  26. southpaw: I’d have to fly cross country to find a relative not already in the path of the storm.

    I lost power for about 15 minutes about a half-hour ago, and then it was restored. For now.

  27. Here in the northern Philly suburbs, I just got home from work. My boss closed up early since it was pretty quiet all day. Many places are closed around here.

    It’s been raining lightly but steadily most of the day. The wind has been gradually picking up. I don’t have a wind gauge, but I’d guesstimate it’s as high as 30 mph.

    It hasn’t been too bad–so far.

    I heard a report on the radio on the way home that said the storm has sped up and should make landfall about 6:00 pm. This morning it was 8:00. Good. Might as well get it over with, and the faster it moves through the better.

    I stopped at a 7-11 on the way home and was able to buy some bags of ice for my cooler, just in case. I got there in the nick of time, as it was almost all gone.

  28. Good luck, rickl! You too, Neo. I’m on the south side of Philly, too damn close to a creek. As you say, rickl, not too bad so far, but it looks like a long night. I’m glad it sped up; let’s get this over with!

  29. Good luck, roc scssrs! It looks like the center of the storm will be closer to you than me.

    5:00 pm storm track

    I’ve noticed that the wind tends to come and go in waves. I wouldn’t call them gusts. It’s windy for a few minutes; then it calms down for a few minutes.

  30. “Hopefully my house will be able to withstand the wind, but I don’t believe it’s ever been tested like this before. It was built in 1956, so hopefully they built them sturdier back then.”

    Our house was built in 1904, it is sturdy. In 2006 a tornado passed 3 blocks away with 100+ mph winds and sent a 2×4 from who knows where, like a spear, through an upstairs window (we were in the basement). Otherwise, no damage.

    Best wishes for all in the path of this storm.

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