<p>Cape May county - Mandatory evacuation, beginning 8AM tomorrow morning. Can not begin to imagine what Garden State Parkway will be like heading North.</p>
<p>'At a press conference Thursday, county officials ordered a mandatory evacuation of Cape May County’s barrier islands on Thursday and a mandatory evacuation of the mainland on Friday. The order covered all 16 municipalities, including the estimated 1 million residents, visitors and workers on this coastal peninsula."</p>
<p>I have a home on an island in NC, my son has to evacuate W&M and I live at the Jersey Shore. That is my Sad Tale of Hurricane Woe.</p>
<p>I am on Martha’s Vineyard at the moment and though islanders are playing down the upcoming storm, I can see that any boat small enough is being taken out of the water and many of the larger boats in the harbor have disappeared. If I were a home owner I would be staying (and would already have all of the emergency items mentioned above on hand) but my rental is up on Sunday and it seemed ridiculous not to try for an earlier than planned ferry reservation and to get home before Irene hits.</p>
<p>The Steamship Authority was proactive and sent out an email to anyone with a Sunday car reservation saying that they are running extra ferries before the weekend. Every ferry is booked this time of year so the only way to get people off is to add additional boats before a storm. The email also said that there would likely be cancellations on Sunday. </p>
<p>If you live in Boston I suppose you could put off leaving until early Sunday but for those of us that are driving south it is smart to leave earlier - driving in a storm is not fun and if it truly is a hurricane it would be dangerous. As I have wandered around today I can see that the island is emptying out. I am sure that the locals are delighted. 
</p>
<p>I was on the Cape during Hurricane Bob years ago and while it was an adventure, being in a tiny rental with no electricity or running water was not a ton of fun.</p>
<p>anothercrazymom- your screen name is earned with that post above, your son evacuted, WandM, you have home on NC island, and you live at Jersey Shore- oy vey!</p>
<p>I don’t know if these have been listed, but for ongoing reference here are state emergency links:</p>
<p>Florida
[Welcome</a> to FloridaDisaster.org](<a href=“http://www.floridadisaster.org%5DWelcome”>http://www.floridadisaster.org)</p>
<p>Georgia
[GEMA/Homeland</a> Security](<a href=“http://www.gema.state.ga.us%5DGEMA/Homeland”>http://www.gema.state.ga.us)</p>
<p>South Carolina
[South</a> Carolina Emergency Management Division - Home](<a href=“http://www.scemd.org%5DSouth”>http://www.scemd.org)</p>
<p>North Carolina
<a href=“http://www.ncem.org%5B/url%5D”>www.ncem.org</a></p>
<p>Virginia
[VAEmergency.com</a> > Newsroom & Archives > Disaster Information Mini-Site](<a href=“http://www.virginiaemergency.com%5DVAEmergency.com”>http://www.virginiaemergency.com)</p>
<p>Maryland
[Welcome</a> to the Maryland Emergency Management Agency Portal - HOMEPAGE](<a href=“http://www.mema.state.md.us%5DWelcome”>http://www.mema.state.md.us)</p>
<p>Delaware
[DEMA</a> - Home](<a href=“http://www.dema.delaware.gov%5DDEMA”>http://www.dema.delaware.gov)</p>
<p>New Jersey
[New</a> Jersey Office of Emergency Management](<a href=“http://www.ready.nj.gov%5DNew”>http://www.ready.nj.gov)</p>
<p>New York City
[Office</a> of Emergency Management (OEM)](<a href=“http://www.nyc.gov/oem]Office”>NYC Emergency Management)</p>
<p>New York State
[NYS</a> Division of Homeland Security & Emergency Services](<a href=“http://www.semo.state.ny.us%5DNYS”>http://www.semo.state.ny.us)</p>
<p>Connecticut
<a href=“http://www.ct.gov/demhs[/url]”>www.ct.gov/demhs</a></p>
<p>Rhode Island
[State</a> of Rhode Island: Emergency Management Agency:](<a href=“http://www.riema.ri.gov%5DState”>http://www.riema.ri.gov)</p>
<p>Massachusetts
[Massachusetts</a> Emergency Management Agency - Executive Office of Public Safety](<a href=“http://www.state.ma.us/mema]Massachusetts”>http://www.state.ma.us/mema)</p>
<p>Maine
[Maine</a> Emergency Management Agency](<a href=“http://www.maine.gov/mema]Maine”>Home | Maine Emergency Management Agency)</p>
<p>Jim Cantore is in NYC. NOT A GOOD SIGN for the big city. I was very disconcerting when he showed up in our town for Frances or Jean. He was right on spot. Still time for him to move around. Keep your eye on his location.</p>
<p>blueiguana, thank you so much!</p>
<p>I’m still expecting to see someday Jim Cantore or some other TV weather guy get decapitated live on TV by a flying street sign while they are standing like idiots outside in 50 mph+ storm winds doing their TV broadcasts.</p>
<p>anothercrazymom, I can empathize. DH’s Mom (80 yrs old) and sister live on the Outer Banks. Just tried to call…no answer. MIL has never left the OBX during a hurricane, even with mandatory evac. We are at our second home in a coastal NC county about 60 miles as the crow flies from the ocean. S2 is at college 25 miles from us in a dumpy rental surrounded by huge trees. S1 is in the Navy stationed at VA Bch and lives on the Chesapeake Bay. My brother and DH’s other sister also live in NC east of I-95. Also have a 83 yr.old widowed aunt who lives alone in northeastern NC.<br>
I have so many people to worry about that I don’t know where to start.</p>
<p>Lizard… I don’t think I would feel much sympathy if we DID see that!!!</p>
<p>Cantore was standing in Battery Park an hour ago and said he expected that spot would have 11 feet of water over his head by Sunday morning. Yikes - I used to work at 1 State Street. Thinking I may be working from home Monday. Need to make sure cell phones & Blackberries are fully charged.</p>
<p>For all people stuck in PEPCO land, open a twitter account now. A friend discovered that they respond much more quickly to complaints by tweet than any other way. You can call, be on hold forever, never speak to a human being, and have no way of knowing if they know that your power is out. Or apparently, you can tweet them and they’ll tweet you back!</p>
<p>I notice on the PEPCO web site that it’s VERY easy to Stop Service. Could be an alternative to losing it …</p>
<p>[Start</a> or Stop Your Service - Pepco](<a href=“http://www.pepco.com/home/requests/startstop/]Start”>http://www.pepco.com/home/requests/startstop/)</p>
<p>Marian, if you can’t charge your cell phone, an alternative would be to plug in a corded landline phone into your home phone jack. That will work during a blackout. The small amount of electricity that comes into the phone jack is enough to power a phone. Many people don’t know this. I keep a corded phone in my linen closet for this purpose! Also, I have an old-fashioned kitchen phone that works during a blackout.</p>
<p>^ Excellent suggestino Lurknessmonster- tx</p>
<p>“Cantore was standing in Battery Park an hour ago and said he expected that spot would have 11 feet of water over his head by Sunday morning.”</p>
<p>Let me know if he moves uptown to the Guggenheim and says the same thing … because THAT would be worrisome.</p>
<p>Southern Nassau County here, but close to NYC/Nassau County line-just received automated call saying that all those south of Sunrise Highway -closer to the the shore than Southern State Parkway should make plans for possible evacuation so we may head to relatives on the North Shore, will wait till we hear more what the storm track turns out to be, but I am concerned about this one and that it is not just Weather Channel hype for storm of the century-thinking we may lose power for several days and trains will not likely be running either so won’t see my office anytime soon. Main concern about from everyone’s safety would be because of power that sump pump won’t work and our basement will flood. We had flooded driveway just from the rainstorm two weeks ago-it was an intense storm. Hope we won’t have huge trees on our street coming down. Mandatory evacuation for Long Beach, Atlantic Beach, Lido and Fire Island We have already brought in outdoor furniture, stocked up on extra water, batteries, food, rope, bought an extra pump, filled both cars, gave our d’s -one en route to Brooklyn in the AM and the other living in Brooklyn, the hurricane preparedness drill including taking extra cash out in case ATM’s fail. Was 9 months pregnant with older d for Hurricane Gloria and I think more of the power problems were further east and in New England and were on vacation in NH for Hurricane Bob.</p>
<p>To conserve cellphone batteries, if you have more than one in the house (ie DH, kids) only run one at a time. Also, don’t run multiple apps on a smartphone which will run down your battery. Everyone probably knows these things, but maybe one person doesn’t … I hate these storms and am a worrywart. Thinking of everyone in harms way and wishing you the safest of weekends.</p>
<p>My cell phone battery charge evaporated with the earthquake outage earlier this week. Will definitely make sure everyone is fully charged tomorrow and turns offs with any problems. (this excludes 14yo who has 3 batteries for his phone…don’t ask!)</p>
<p>Going to be stressful weekend between move-in, Irene, shore house and oak tree next to driveway with 15 degree lean! (I typically wouldn’t be too worried about shore house, as we are packed together like sardines, but we had huge fire on our block in March and are now open to elements and house next to us has significant unrepaired damage, such that it could collapse)</p>
<p>Keep those pointers coming blueiguana, and others, for many of us, this is first experience, and appreciate it all!</p>