Hurricane Sandy

[Judge Jude]

"That is the poorest excuse for a map that I've ever seen."

Oh, I see.
Yes, I have JCP&L, and that one is particularly awful.

Getting out is helpful, but I agree that it is presented in a very primitive way. I'll tell myself it's because they are on backup power or something. It's an excuse!

[umjewman]

After 141 hours, we finally got power back....about 20 minutes after we left for temporary housing for the evening. Naturally.

We're incredibly grateful that we only suffered from a power loss and some property damage for my parents and nothing worse. And back to work tomorrow. I'm actually happy to be getting back to work after a week out (never thought I would say that).

[chancellor]

I should sell the module I developed for outage restoration notifications for gazillions of dollars. This is absolutely heinous. What the hell does it do to address the #1 question any person experiencing an outage has --- when will power be restored?

You absolutely should sell the module.

[B-Fly]

Still no power at my house. My family is in our third guest house of the last five nights, although we're now finally with family, as my brother won the "which close relative will get power back first" contest. My 20-month-old is a terror, so I feared we were quickly wearing out our welcome at the friends' homes where we stayed Wednesday thru Saturday nights. Today is the first day I've managed to get into work since the storm, and it wasn't easy. My brother and I watched multiple packed-to-the-gills buses pass us without stopping before we decided to return to his house and spend precious gasoline to drive into the City.

[Judge Jude]

Hang in there, B-Fly!


Meanwhile, all of the towns in Bergen County where at least half the residents still don't have power are extremely affluent overall.

I don't think that was deliberate. But interesting governmental question: In a disaster, should it be public policy to prioritize those most desperately in need of power, who may have no insurance, and so forth?

I don't necessarily see that as a "liberal" point of view. Is it just pragmatic?

Many of those in affluent towns are not financially distressed by staying in a hotel for a week, or they can fly to second homes in Florida or wherever, or they can just buy plane tickets and leave the region for as long as they feel like.

Interested in some thoughts on this....

[swampdragon]

I still have no power and don't even seem to have a chance at power before Friday.

I am still not back teaching in my district - the high/middle school still don't have power - so I am not sure when will go back to school

PSEG keeps sending update tables which are very specific and very vague at the same time. They list numbers of customers that will be fixed in the next few days but they don't ever quite line up with the table from the day before and the totals are still only about 2/3rds of the peoplw without power

[Judge Jude]

"every utility (particularly regulated ones) have an onus upon them to restore hospitals, critical services, and the like first."

love finding experts on everything on RJ!
never thought I'd find someone who can answer this question, but maybe you can as a contingency planner:

I live across the street from the largest senior center in North Jersey, and within a few hundred yards of a Target, a Wal-Mart, a Home Depot, and a Lowe's (also a Best Buy and a Sports Authority, but I doubt that helps).

Could my only losing power for 16 hours - blink of an eye by area standards this week - have anything to do with us getting power back so fast? The condo complex has about 40 floors worth of residences overall, so it's not tiny but it's not huge by any means.

Or is it really just underground wiring, no trees quite close enough to hit buildings, and no flooding concerns even when nearby towns get flooded?

asking because I think with this crazy weather these sort of questions probably should be factors in buying/renting if they are advantages.....

[swampdragon]

My town is very quaint and has a few things going against quick repairs
ancient not upgraded system
100 year old trees everywhere
all utility poles in the backyards - woven around trees
many small clusters of power
all single family houses

the town is on the national register and does not have electric street lamps so there are no lines in front - we have gas lamps lighting the streets - really

[heyelander]

shame, sounds like a pretty cool lamp if it was actually gas fed.

[revo]

Still no power at my house. My family is in our third guest house of the last five nights, although we're now finally with family, as my brother won the "which close relative will get power back first" contest. My 20-month-old is a terror, so I feared we were quickly wearing out our welcome at the friends' homes where we stayed Wednesday thru Saturday nights. Today is the first day I've managed to get into work since the storm, and it wasn't easy. My brother and I watched multiple packed-to-the-gills buses pass us without stopping before we decided to return to his house and spend precious gasoline to drive into the City.

Still no power at my house either. Went from two weeks in Kansas to now four days in PA -- haven't been home in almost 2 1/2 weeks. Went to buy a generator in Honesdale, PA today, but they were picked clean. Half my town has power, and who knows about the other half (of which I live). Awesome!

[swampdragon]

Conceptually cool but looked like a rusted out piece of sh!t. It would be neat to have an actual working gas lamp, though.

here is a piece on the gas lamps in my town
http://www.baristanet.com/2010/10/sh...our-gas-lamps/

if you look around on the root web site then you can see current problems around the area

[Judge Jude]

buy a lapdance at this Atlantic City strip club, and $5 of it goes to American Red Cross:

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/atlantic/atlantic-city-strip-club-to-donate-a-lap-dance-hurricane/article_68dfcef4-278e-11e2-9fd8-0019bb2963f4.html

one of my Twitter followers wrote, 'So I help someone go to college AND help hurricane victims!"

[Long John]

eld - NJ has a ton of overhead wires - especially North Jersey. It's rare to see underground wiring around here. In the more populated areas, especially Bergen/Passaic/Essex/Union Counties, you have a ton of single family homes. Most of these homes are on lots that are 35-40 wide x 100-125 deep and they're all lined up for miles and miles. Since most of these towns have been around 150+ years, you have lots of mature trees that were planted way back when without any regard to electrical needs or sidewalk/road configurations. The number of trees that took out lines and/or transformers in this storm is probably in the tens of thousands range. Combine that with flooded out substations and its no wonder 25% of the state still doesn't have any power.

[Bob Kohm]

Anyone heard from Hammer?

[B-Fly]

Today's NY Daily News: THIS SUCKS!
Today's NY Post: GOD HATES US

That was some serious snow we got last night. Luckily, the roads around my brother's place where we've been staying this week were well plowed. It seems the power came back on my block before the storm. Beth is going to check it out today. Maybe we can move back home in time for the kids' bedtimes.