Hurricane Sandy Check-In

[Shalom]

Lost power about 2:10 PM (I'm posting this from a neighbor's house; we're right near the edge of our power grid, and the corner houses are fed from the next grid over). Tree fell on a power line. Thirdhand hearsay from a fireman is that they won't even try to fix stuff until the wind is down below 20mph.

edit: the lights have been flickering occasionally here as well, but so far have stayed on. There's a cat here, but he won't let me play with him. Probably nervous because of my kids chasing him around.

[lupo pazzesco]

BookstoreEscapee is currently without power and is experiencing some pretty bad wind. She's touching base via text message with me, and I'm passing it along.

Y'all stay safe, ok?

[Dasota]

Doesn't Don Paul make you nuts? "OMG IT'S THE STORM OF THE CENTURY!!! "

I've got coffee, chocolate and wine....emergency supplies

We went grocery shopping today, stocked up a bit. It was funny watching the other customers. Some of them had full carts. One couple walked out with only.....a pumpkin. Hey, priorities, right?

I don't have any regular TV, just Netflix and Hulu, so I haven't been listening to the charlatans trying to justify their jobs.

I've got my grilled cheese and soup and wine. I'm all set.

[Monica]

I'm in NW PA, close to the NY border near Jamestown Ny, and an hour and a half from Buffalo, NY.

Raining hard now, had one wind gust, but nothing major.

[Victory Sabre]

BookstoreEscapee is currently without power and is experiencing some pretty bad wind. She's touching base via text message with me, and I'm passing it along.

Y'all stay safe, ok?

I thought that was the case. She dropped out of chat quite a while ago. Glad she's ok.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

All I've seen is wind . . . the winds started picking up around noon and they've not let up much. We're under a high wind advisory until 6 a.m. tomorrow.

We've had brief periods of rain, not hard sideways rain but nonetheless we've seen some off and on. No loss of power either. Even our Dish at home hasn't went out once, which is surprising given the wind gusts (my Mom had to point that out earlier.)

The way Sandy came up on shore, it's like he hit the outer banks and the coast and then took a northward turn toward the Mid-Atlantic states.

But what our forecasters are watching for is the possibility of snow in the mountain regions, specifically the higher elevations. Fox 8 was interviewing a couple of municipal employees from Wautauga Co (I think?) early this morning and they have salt trucks and snowplows on standby - they're just watching and waiting to see what develops.

But from what I'm hearing on Jane Velez-Mitchell, Manhattan is getting hammered! Hope all of you guys on the East Coast are safe.

Thanks for letting us know BE is okay, Lupo. Let her know we're all relieved that she's safe.

[KiaKat]

Battery Park broke the record for water height around 90 minutes ago, and the water is still rising.

If you've seen the photo posted by George Takei to FB about 10-20 minutes ago, that's in an area of the city where I spent much time - my favourite bar is right there. A tiki-themed dive with old arcade games and a tiny little burlesque venue in the back, filled with punk bartendenders and metalheads. The water is so high, it's drowning cars.

My inlaws are ok... for now. If anything goes sideways, though, they have no way of getting out. Bridges and tunnels are closed. Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel is starting to flood. This is epic. We're waiting to hear from Husband's friends about whether or not Chinatown is under water yet. (UPDATE: Power is now out through lower Manhattan. Confirmation from several independent sources in Chinatown/LES)

Up here, we're fine. It's windy, and some areas have lost power, but flooding isn't a problem in the main part of town. The riverfront/Amtrak region will have issues, but that bit gets flooded if you look at it wrong.

[MoonCat]

I came across some tweets from Gov. Cuomo. Says the East tunnel was flooding, up to 4 ft of water.

[Crossbow]

Doesn't Don Paul make you nuts? "OMG IT'S THE STORM OF THE CENTURY!!! "

I've got coffee, chocolate and wine....emergency supplies

We went grocery shopping today, stocked up a bit. It was funny watching the other customers. Some of them had full carts. One couple walked out with only.....a pumpkin. Hey, priorities, right?

Gods! Don Paul drove me nuts when I lived in Buffalo! So glad I got out. Granted, I didn't get all that far...

Being in Ohio I don't expect to get much of it, but we've already had a little snow. Didn't stick to the ground though.

No snow in the norther part of the state, but plenty of rain. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if I90 along the lakeshore is flooded out.

[KiaKat]

I came across some tweets from Gov. Cuomo. Says the East tunnel was flooding, up to 4 ft of water.

MTA says East River tunnels have 4ft, and PATH tunnels have 3ft.

[KiaKat]

UPDATE: Apparently there was an explosion at a ConEd substation in the East Village, contributing to the blackout. Likely it was the one at 14th St, right in the middle of the flooding.

Photos: http://gothamist.com/2012/10/29/lowe...er_after_p.php

[MadMike]

South Central PA here, living across the river from Harrisburg, and working in Harrisburg. It got a little cold here, and started raining sideways. They closed my son's college last night, and sent my wife home from work early (she got home before I even got up for my job), but they didn't close mine, which pissed me off. They eventually sent us home at 1:00 pm, which was better than nothing, I suppose, but it gets to be a mess in the parking garage when every single person tries to leave at the same time.

Surprisingly, they already closed us for tomorrow. The worst of it supposed to hit tomorrow afternoon. So far, we haven't lost power for any length of time, but it has flickered a few times, and gone out twice for a split second.

[ArcticChicken]

Power's been flickering for a while, went out for a couple seconds. I've got a camp lantern on standby, and a box of matches in my pocket.

[Greenday]

Checking from BookstoreEscapee's area. Power went out late afternoon. Wind is insane. Just watched a huge tree fall on my neighbor's lawn.

My sister works at a retirement home. She slept over Sunday night and tonight. Their generator blew. Her boss said they can't sleep and have to patrol the halls.

[KiaKat]

Video of the explosion.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAqYZ433TeQ