<p>Tomorrow should be interesting - the storm is predicted to pass right through here.</p>
<p>Hurricanes are not ment to be overhyped. They have the potential to be very very bad.</p>
<p>That being said, i used to live in FL and it was always freaky when one would pass by. It would storm like mad. I remember around 99’ there was one that nearly missed us, it caused the schools to be closed down for 2 days, etc.</p>
<p>I also think that was around the same time (and same storm) that caused one of our huge trees in the back yard to fall down (a mini tornado jumped on it lol).</p>
<p>Barrons, you sound exactly like “that guy” in disaster movies – the one who always scoffs at approaching natural disasters (or dinosaurs) and says “This is no big deal – I’m staying put.”</p>
<p>You know that those guys are always the first ones to get bumped off. Or eaten.</p>
<p>It’s raining quite heavily now where I am, but the strong winds aren’t supposed to really start up until about 2 or 3 am.</p>
<p>My apartment building isn’t in an evacuation zone, but Ziggy and I are on the 11th floor of a building right on the Hudson River a few blocks north of the GW Bridge – on top of a cliff standing above the river – with no other buildings in between me and the river, and with my bedroom and living room windows all directly facing the water.</p>
<p>So I’m sure it’ll be exciting!</p>
<p>I admit I’m a little nervous that my windows will shatter and the high winds will cause the rain to start pouring into my apartment. In my experience, even a 30 mph wind sounds like a freight train up here and is kind of nerve-wracking.</p>
<p>From everything I’ve read, the idea that taping one’s windows does any good at all is a myth, so I haven’t bothered. Instead, after making sure that my windows were all closed as much as I could manage (for a couple, it was impossible – at least for me – to close the top halves completely, no matter how hard I pushed up), I taped a flattened cardboard box over the top halves of the one window that has no blinds or anything else covering it, and a couple of others that I wasn’t able to close all the way. I’m not too worried about the bottom halves, because all my windows are storm windows with double panes of glass on the bottom half. If things are bad enough that both of those break, I don’t think cardboard is going to help!</p>
<p>I ransacked all my drawers and closets looking for flashlights, and found a half-dozen of them. I’ll never be far from one! And plenty of batteries – some of them in unopened packages with expiration dates as long ago as 2003, 2004, and 2005. Those, I threw out!</p>
<p>After I got home from work last night, I took a walk to the two local supermarkets. Both had been pretty much emptied. I found it fascinating to see the kinds of things left behind, that people obviously <em>don’t</em> want to buy, even in an emergency. Pumpernickel bread. Piles of it. I think I got the last non-pumpernickel loaf in either store. Orange juice with “lots of pulp.” No-salt saltines. Brown cinnamon-flavored Ritz crackers. Wilted lettuce. Yum. There wasn’t a single package of half-liter bottles of water left, only some 12-packs of the 8-ounce bottles. I bought several, of course; they may be more expensive per ounce but I couldn’t afford to be that choosy!</p>
<p>And I got a couple of hundred dollars out of an ATM, just in case. There was a long line.</p>
<p>Perhaps I’m overreacting a little, but it’s hard not to, given the incessant drumbeat of impending doom one encounters every time one turns on the news on TV or radio or looks for local New York City news on the Internet. I’m able to rationally evaluate and discount (to a certain extent) the exact same sorts of apocalyptic predictions that the local media is fond of making whenever there’s a blizzard (“Snowpocalypse!”) or nor’easter approaching. But I’ve experienced those my whole life. Hurricanes, not so much.</p>
<p>Although I did have the bad luck to experience the direct impact of two major hurricanes as a young child – Hurricane Esther when my family was on vacation in Montauk in 1961 ([Hurricane</a> Esther (1961) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Esther]Hurricane”>Hurricane Esther - Wikipedia) ), and Hurricane Cleo when we were on vacation in Miami Beach in 1964 ([Hurricane</a> Cleo - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Cleo]Hurricane”>Hurricane Cleo - Wikipedia) ), involving “sustained winds of 100-105 mph (160 km/h–170 km/h) with gusts to 135 mph (215 km/h).” According to Wikipedia, both were Category 4 hurricanes.</p>
<p>Maybe my memories of those two experiences are coloring my thoughts now, because they were both extremely frightening, especially the one in Miami Beach. It sounds like this one is unlikely to be anywhere close to that dire. Even so, back then I had no responsibilities to take precautions on or make decisions; it was all up to Mommy and Daddy! Now, it’s just me and Ziggy. (J. is still in Berlin, so at least I don’t have to worry about him with respect to this.)</p>
<p>But 60-70 mph winds with possible gusts to 90, increased by however much by my being a couple of hundred feet up in the air on top of my cliff, are nothing to take lightly. So maybe I’m not overreacting at all. Whatever Mr. “that guy” thinks.</p>
<p>Still, there’s really not much left for me to do, except fill the tub before I go to sleep (not to drink – I have enough to last for at least a few days – but in case I lose water pressure and need it to be able to flush the toilet). And hope that the noise of the wind doesn’t freak Ziggy out. If it’s even a fraction of what I remember Hurricane Cleo sounding like when I was a child – and even though it’s not nearly as strong a storm, I’m much more exposed up here on top of my cliff than I was in our hotel back then – it’s going to be loud.</p>
<p>Thank you franflish. Yes my D1 has identified other places she can go. We have discussed her alternative plans several times.</p>
<p>I know it is hard to imagine, at least for me, but my sister is a state legislator in New Jersey and a university administrator at Penn with direct responsibility for move-in related events. I have no idea which way she is turning right now. All I can say is that very few people ever regret being over-prepared and I know that all her energies have been devoted to this the past few days. It is not a matter of ‘hype’ it is a matter of weather being out of our control…Wishing everyone well…</p>
<p>As a watcher, I see the preparation by officials as fantastic! Lucky you guys. If we had had similar hard working officials where I live, we wouldn’t have had a power station blow up this summer. Be thankful.</p>
<p>Why can’t they get together and all deal with the economic situation in the same way?</p>
<p>So here’s the Brooklyn update: It has been very rainy all night, but the winds here in the City have been relatively less than they had predicted. Probably in the 50-60 mph range rather than the 70-90 range that they were saying earlier. There is a lot of flooding in the areas they knew would flood, so all of the precautionary measures were necessary. There are no power outages in the city itself, perhaps in Staten Island and Westchester, where the power lines are above ground. There is a lot of beach flooding. Irene looks like she is starting to say goodnight. Weather reports just showed the southern part of the storm is about to cross over NYC and it is quite a bit lighter on that side of the center of the storm. From my window in Brooklyn I can see a couple of trash cans turned over, but right here there are no trees down or other damage. I am sure that is not the case everywhere. We even have our balcony door open (wind is from the other direction) and have been sitting in the doorway having a hurricane coffee party this morning. I am not meaning to diminish the importance and the danger of the storm for others, just saying that for me it has not been a scary experience. I would guess that the worst is going to be in cleaning up from the flooding and then tomorrow getting the subways back running will take some time. I think all of the government officials did a GREAT job this time and they are all to be heartily commended. I am sure they saved lives.</p>
<p>I spoke to my mother in CT this morning, and she said the power had been out there since a little after midnight. Some dead trees from the neighbor’s woods have fallen across her stone wall on one side of the property. Other than that, it’s just raining hard and windy: more tropical storm than hurricane to her.</p>
<p>Here in Maine it is dark and rainy, but not even raining hard. Yesterday, I finally bowed to all of the hurricane hype and filled my car with gas, got $100 out of an ATM, and roasted some vegetables and poached some chicken for salad in case we are without power for any significant time. We always have candles and batteries, because we have power failures quite frequently. Our biggest concern is that power loss combined with heavy rains could mean a flooded cellar–no sump pump–and a flooded furnace. We’ve come close to losing the furnace before, during a sever nor’easter. So far, I haven’t even heard the sump pump come on. But perhaps we’ll have more rain later…</p>
<p>H went to Home Depot yesterday and bought a generator: something we have resisted doing for 15 years, although many around here have them. It is sitting in its box in the garage, and will probably go back if we don’t need it.</p>
<p>franglish - thanks for the update. I just turned on CNN to watch the storm, it looks like there are a lot of people out at the Long Beach to watch the storm. Manhattan doesn’t look that flooded, even down at Battery Park.</p>
<p>The rain has stopped, it even looks like it is trying to dry out. Took the dog out, no real damage except a couple of broken branches. I am glad the the city erred on the side of caution and got people off of the streets.</p>
<p>My take away from the experience:</p>
<p>You gotta love college boys. At the packed supermarket, every one was stocking up to ride out the storm. The 2 boys on line in front of me got 2- 30 pack cartons of Coors, ~5- 6packs of hard lemonade, a slew of TGIF appetizers (BOGO free) and some pasta. Hey some people need different things for survival mode</p>
<p>Well, my dad told me of the damage they sustained. Part of the fence got busted up (i guess) and the mail box needed fixing. But other than that they survived. Their neighbor down the street, however, lost part of their roof.</p>
<p>@soozievt-- How did your daughter do in the storm? And her concert? Your pm box is full, so I am posting this in public. Actually, she may very well have done better than you did, in Vermont. The damage there seems to have been so awful. Hope you are OK!</p>
<p>Oldfort…No, I don’t think it is the same place. My son is back at work in the city…no time off and no series 7 exam. Wishing your daughter all the best!</p>
<p>franglish…sorry, my PM fills up and I don’t like using it much as it is one more thing to check besides personal and work email accounts, Facebook, etc. and prefer emails to PMs (you can click on my member name and choose “send email.”)</p>
<p>My daughter ended up not truly affected by the hurricane. Never lost power and her area in Brooklyn was fine. With all the dire reports of the impending hurricane in NYC, I was a bit worried, and never thought of anything too bad happening in Vermont but ironically Vermont got it very very bad. My community had a lot of damage, as did many other communities in VT. The villages in my community were flooded with lot of damage from that to homes and businesses. Many roads are closed (including the covered bridge I typically have to go through each day to get anywhere). Some towns are closed off, because we don’t have many roads in the first place in small rural towns and so if a main road going in or out is washed out, that can affect things in a big way. However, I am not personally affected. I don’t live in the village, but rather live on a dirt road in the mountains and not near the river. I stayed in and did not see the flooding first hand, but saw the photos from my community which were pretty bad. My only personal effect is various detours. It is very sad to see piles and huge dumpsters outside all the buildings in each village in my community and the damage suffered. </p>
<p>Luckily, the subways were back up and running in NYC on Monday as you know and thus, my daughter’s CD release concert went off successfully. She packed the venue. I’m getting to see the professional videos and photo shoot from it. The venue just contacted her to book her again and she also just booked another significant venue as well. Being a singer/songwriter is just one facet of her career, but right now, each areas of her theater/music career is going well and so I am happy for her. In fact, she is home visiting for a few days right now, which is a rarity! </p>
<p>Thank you for asking! Hope you and your community did OK in this storm!</p>