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Sandy

What I am finding annoying is the people with too much time to photoshop pictures. Last night, one of the reputable news sites posted a picture of the new Indian River Inlet Bridge failing. (Coastal Highway between Fenwick Island and Ocean City, MD). I've also seen sharks swimming through neighborhoods. And the less obvious worry of Godzilla marching up various beaches. Talented people, yes. But these really should be verified before being posted as breaking news.
 
O.K. not to diminish the true tragedy this was to some but WOW, I was just watching CNN, and the sensationalism is just comical.

Just watched a live report where they spied a woman on a balcony "stranded", the reporter said the water was at least chest deep, and there was no way for the woman to get out. Meanwhile I am looking at the car parked in the driveway and the water wasn't even up to the rims and the bushes along the sidewalk were barely in the water.

While basically blathering for a few more minutes, here come some guys pushing a small flat bottom boat through the chest deep water, the water barely above their ankles :rolleyes

A few more minutes here comes a woman, who looked surprisingly like the stranded woman,, dog tucked in her coat, and pants rolled up walking out.

PLEASE get some reporters that have a brain!!!
 
I saw the same series. None of the news channels have ever lost money pandering with drivel to their viewers. Reporters with brains, perhaps; viewers with brains is the real question. I turned the tube off and continued my search to check on family and friends. So far all appear to be safe physically. As Paul suggested, flooding issues were the main problems faced by those who had problems so far.

Best wishes fro best of luck to all of you affected.
 
As Paul suggested, flooding issues were the main problems faced by those who had problems so far.

Best wishes fro best of luck to all of you affected.

I did fail to mention the unlucky few who had trees fall on them. That is sad.
 
I could care much less for the urban population of NYC and New Jersy than I do for the folks in Appalacia that are already having super hard times with little or no help in their day to day struggle for existence. NOW, they have the additional burden of 3 to 4 feet of snow in late October.

Yes, it is terrible to have your home washed away by a storm surge, even though you KNEW when you built that place that this very thing could happen. And yes, to be caught unawares without a generator or supplies can be life threatening. For me though, freezing and huddling by my propane cook stove with my children in a single wide trailer is NOT a way to spend the next few weeks.......All in all prayers and thoughts to both sets of disaster.............

God bless them.......Dennis

Wondering if the deflection of the news stories from Lybia to this will have anything to do with delaying the upcoming elections so that NO ONE is disenfranchised???????????????????
 
I'm sitting in dry, calm Texas observing. I'm pretty sure when it is all over that like Katrina in New Orleans, the vast majority of damage will be from flood events and not damage from high winds. That, and losses due to power being out for a week or two, or three.

Floods are really nasty--they don't call water the "universal solvent" for nothing.

I spent most of a summer pumping out basements for the city after a flood. One time the lady was across the street when I arrived and didn't see me in time to catch me leaving. I'd looked into her basement and it looked dry to me so I left. When I came back, closer inspection revealed it looked dry because of all the wood wall paneling floating on top.
 
PG has it right- its always the flooding and falling trees. flying objects, etc- at least until you get much higher up the wind scale than Sandy- which was a non-event here in sounthern NC- we didn't even pull boats fom lifts and took no precaution beyond the usual pre hurricane season stuff of verifying the generator and its fuel supply, checking on boarding materials in storage, etc etc.

I have to agree with pffog. I find some of the coverage out of NY to be breathless overhyped drivel- simply an easy way to make something for TV. The power and transporation issues will prove to be major inconveniences to tolerate and correct but there's a long way between that sort of thing and immediate danger. Apparently there has been at least one levee failure and a major fire- those and the loss of Bounty off the NC coast seem to be the biggest imediate loses but there will be a lot of folks looking for something beside the subway for a while.

Watch out for those delayed floods as water rolls off the hills up there and collects downstream...
 
I could care much less for the urban population of NYC and New Jersy than I do for the folks in Appalacia that are already having super hard times with little or no help in their day to day struggle for existence. NOW, they have the additional burden of 3 to 4 feet of snow in late October.

Yes, it is terrible to have your home washed away by a storm surge, even though you KNEW when you built that place that this very thing could happen. And yes, to be caught unawares without a generator or supplies can be life threatening. For me though, freezing and huddling by my propane cook stove with my children in a single wide trailer is NOT a way to spend the next few weeks.......All in all prayers and thoughts to both sets of disaster.............

God bless them.......Dennis

In many cases, these are not vacation homes. And many of the people who live in them get up and go to work each day to average paying jobs. They didn't necessarily BUILD their homes on a beach. Many of my coworkers live in the DE/MD beach area and I am concerned for all of them. Furthermore, much of the flooding is inland, not just the block or two from the ocean and bay. We were fortunate to have gotten off as easy as we did. We've had much worse flooding from much lesser storms. And I live 60 miles from the beaches but only about 5 miles from the river and a mile from a creek that can cause major flooding and lose of property.

I would love to live in Applachia. My husband grew up there but there is a lack of good paying jobs. This is why we live where we do. I'm sure the people of NYC were not expecting the damage that Sandy has caused but they have proven to be survivors of the worst and for that , they have my respect.
 
Prayers go out to those still without power and necessities. The NJ coast got destroyed, and they are not all vacation homes, a percentage of every shore town has permanent residents. Those that evacuated, won't got home for a while. Those that stayed will be living a paleo existence for days. Let's count our blessings.

I never realized being a motorcycle camper gives one a great start for emergency planning. All the stuff people were advised to stock up on (Flashlights, batteries, cooking gas, instant meals) was already present here, along with with the Jet Boil.
 
My respect for the Governer of NJ has grown. He speaks his mind and is genuinely concerned for the people of his state. Mother Nature again sends a message that ignoring storm warnings and not preparing for these events can be folly and even deadly. My thoughts and prayers go not only to those directly affected by Sandy but to the first responders, police, National Guard, and utility repair personnel involved in the recovery and repair of the damage done. Ride Safe
 
Mother Nature again sends a message that ignoring storm warnings and not preparing for these events can be folly and even deadly.

There's a major issue here. The National Hurricane Center REFUSED to issue any warnings once the storm was north of North Carolina. There were NEVER any hurricane and tropical storm warnings issued by NHC since they insisted it was changing into a "post tropical cyclone" and was not their "jurisdiction". They turned all the responsibility for warnings over to local NWS offices, who did issue wind warnings, but not hurricane warnings.

The reality here is that it slammed into the coast as a full hurricane nearly a thousand miles wide. Totally irresponsible and beyond moronic.

More detail here from Accuweather: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/national-hurricane-center-no-a/839301
 
There's a major issue here. The National Hurricane Center REFUSED to issue any warnings once the storm was north of North Carolina. There were NEVER any hurricane and tropical storm warnings issued by NHC since they insisted it was changing into a "post tropical cyclone" and was not their "jurisdiction". They turned all the responsibility for warnings over to local NWS offices, who did issue wind warnings, but not hurricane warnings.

The reality here is that it slammed into the coast as a full hurricane nearly a thousand miles wide. Totally irresponsible and beyond moronic.

More detail here from Accuweather: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/national-hurricane-center-no-a/839301

That is all just silly finger pointing. Nobody but a hermit in a cave or somebody living in the NYC steam tunnels would have been surprised by this storm. The handoff from the Hurricane Center to the NOAA National Weather Service did not alter the news coverage one bit. Everything I saw or read said this was going to be an unprecedented storm (with high winds, storm surge, major flooding, power outages, and trees toppling) for almost the entire Northeast U.S.

The handoff from one agency to another, while silly maybe, is really no different that the air traffic control enroute center handing off a flight to approach, and then to tower.
 
The storm was unprecedented and so was the lack of hurricane warnings, the sole responsibility of the NHC. I read their stupid refusal when it was issued on 27 October. It has disappeared or been buried on their website. It's irresponsible. A mariner expects to see hurricane flags flyings and hear hurricane warnings announced on weather radio. There's no excuse for NHC to bow out while the storm is still a tropical cyclone, which it was when it hit the coast.
 
Hey tommcgee,

wtf are you talking about? The NHC predicted this storm perfectly from 2 days out before landfall. That is unusual. Take your hatered of the federal governent and brew yourself some tea!
 
There's a major issue here. The National Hurricane Center REFUSED to issue any warnings once the storm was north of North Carolina. There were NEVER any hurricane and tropical storm warnings issued by NHC since they insisted it was changing into a "post tropical cyclone" and was not their "jurisdiction". They turned all the responsibility for warnings over to local NWS offices, who did issue wind warnings, but not hurricane warnings.

The reality here is that it slammed into the coast as a full hurricane nearly a thousand miles wide. Totally irresponsible and beyond moronic.

More detail here from Accuweather: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/national-hurricane-center-no-a/839301

Tom,

Accuweather is a local for-profit company that at one time tried to get legislation introduced in congress to de-fund NOAA and spend the money at private services like themselves. I suggest a bit of caution in following their lead.
 
Tom,

Accuweather is a local for-profit company that at one time tried to get legislation introduced in congress to de-fund NOAA and spend the money at private services like themselves. I suggest a bit of caution in following their lead.

I'm well aware of who they are and I read the NHC statement a full day before Accuweather said anything about it. I would have posted the NHC statement here if they didn't remove it from their website. The Accuweather staement is the only reference I can now find about what happened.

And no, I don't hate government, but fully expect them to do their job. NWS did, NHC did not. Sorry, guys, I'm too much of a weather geek.
 
I'm well aware of who they are and I read the NHC statement a full day before Accuweather said anything about it. I would have posted the NHC statement here if they didn't remove it from their website. The Accuweather staement is the only reference I can now find about what happened.

And no, I don't hate government, but fully expect them to do their job. NWS did, NHC did not. Sorry, guys, I'm too much of a weather geek.

Brownie says it was called an emergency too early........... So, there:)
 
Just a few thoughts from someone who was effected by Sandy..

- The comments blaming the residents are in rather poor taste IMHO. Cities and towns did what they could to prepare, fully knowing the effort they could take wouldn't change things a lot.

- Residents were watching storm predictions with a 500 mile radius from where the storm was predicted to hit land (about in my backyard, turns out to be about 70 miles south.) Where and how would you evacuate about 20,000,000 people (NJ, all of NY, all of DE and most of MD and CT) to - and how would you do it?

- We did have advance warning, but the science of weather prediction being what it is - any action taken on the warning as far as evacuation could well have put people in more danger, since the predicted landfall of the storm bounced around 3 states before it finally did hit land.

- I'm a permanant resident of 36 years, 12 blocks from the ocean. I'm OK. Lost a few trees some minor damage, but the local infrastructure isn't. Power is out to about 96% of NJ residents. THINK about that. Why? Some blame must be put on the for-profit utilities (there was a reason for the "natural monopoly" idea of utility services) - friends who work for them often talk about deferred or no maintenance being done to aging infrastructure, despite record profits by the utility companies (think there is a link there? I do..) The prediction is 7-10 days to restore power, and I will predict it will take a good deal longer then that. Without power - there is no gasoline, no supermarket for food, no refrigeration. Having a geenerator is a luxury people in urban areas really can't take advantage of - running one inside an apartment isn't really considered healthy.

- Do we need better coastal planning and protection? That answer is fairly obvious, but profit motives are what drove the development that was at fault before, and I don't see any prediction or recommendation to change that. The talk now is "coming back" - not fixing the problem to reduce the potential for the same thing happening in another year or two.

Anyway - enough lecture. Those of us in the areas hit by this disaster would appreciate your thoughts and help. If that's not possible, at least don't throw stones at the suffering. Every area has the potential for natural disasters - and it's by helping each other that we can get though this... not by pointing fingers.

Obligatory BMW Content - I used my R1200R to recharge my cell phone.. thanks to a BurnsMoto USB charging port I added a few weeks ago. Thought it might be a handy thing to have - never imagining how valuable it would turn out to be.
 
Hey Don, dunno how to fix it, but ten years ago I took a plane ride from Providence to Baltimore right down the coast and could not believe the development. All I could think about then was what would and did happen during this storm.

People will obviously want to rebuild but why would they when it could easily happen again in their lifetimes? Should the cities and towns issue building permits? I've seen plenty of this type of coastal damage in Massachusetts. Some towns actually did refuse to issue permits in certain places, but it's nowhere near the scale facing New Jersey.

Hang in there, man, I know we dodged a big one in Massachusetts.
 
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