Hurricane Sandy - everyone ok? | Yakezie Reader Insights | Yakezie Forums

It's hard to imagine how scary things are on the East Coast for those of you living there. Anyone have any damage from the storm? It's crazy how much damage can be caused by water and wind. I heard there was 3 feet of water on the stock exchange floor earlier today, and the markets are closed again tomorrow (Tuesday).

I guess some of you may not even see this post for a while if you don't have power.

Hope all of you are okay!

We all weathered the storm just fine here in Colorado! 

Eric – NarrowBridge.net said:

We all weathered the storm just fine here in Colorado! 

Same here in CA. :)  It was almost weird not having rain here watching all the footage. I kept expecting to look out the window and see rain, but it's been calm and dry.

NJ here…we made it through the storm with minor damage (part of the fence damaged and some siding and roof shingles missing) but could have been much worse.  We're only a few miles from the shore and there was major devastation there.  The boardwalk rides are in the ocean and we heard one house was swept off its foundation by the storm surge and ended up in the middle of a state highway.  Much of the state is without power, including me.  Even cell phone service is spotty since many cell towers were knocked out.  

My office is on generator power only so my internet access is severely limited.  A few people have emailed me or messaged me on facebook and I've had difficulty just responding, but My family and I are safe. Just riding out the power outages which hopefully won't last too long.

Mike

My family on Long Island is expecting to be out of power for 1-2 weeks, but they were fortunate to have no damage to their house. There were a lot of fallen trees and several houses in their neighborhood were damaged by falling trees, and houses closer to sea level got some flooding. It's very surreal talking to them – they're walking to the local university's library where they have power to see if they can use their wifi and charge up their cell phones. It's like a scene from a post apocalyptic movie, but without zombies.

I hope those who were less fortunate than my family are doing ok and can get damage repaired quickly.

I lived on Staten Island until I was 21, and still have a ton of friends and their families there.  The damage is ridiculous, lines to get gas are over 2+ hours long (assuming that there is any left when people actually get to the pump after waiting that long), houses flooded or destroyed, it's a mess out there. And that's coming from people who are in areas that aren't so bad as to be without power or cell coverage.  You know it's bad when CNN and Piers Morgan are covering stories from Staten Island!

On top of that, Bloomberg and the NY Roadrunenrs are pushing forward with the marathon which I think is a joke.  If anyone wants to go over to my FB wall and comment on or share my post about how irresponsible it is to put money ahead of the people still in drastic need of help, that would be great.  It has nothing to do with being a blogger or business, just raising awareness of what's going on in the "forgotten borough" and anywhere else that is being neglected for this event. 

https://www.facebook.com/DollarVersity/posts/367506743337357

The problem with the "moving on" theory is that this isn't an event where morale boosting can help. People are without homes, food, transportation, connections to their friends/family. I've heard estimates that it will takes a decade or more to rebuild parts of NY/NJ like the Jersey Shore.  

There is definitely word of the resources being diverted for the marathon.  Displaced people are being told they need to leave the hotels they are staying in–Mike Greenberg's (Mike & Mike on ESPN) parents had to leave theirs and he related the story on air this morning.  The police, EMS and fire departments are used in traffic control and support for the marathon route (when they are needed much more elsewhere).  ConEdison stated that they don't have enough people to clear trees and debris to get power restored in most areas–Midtown and Downtown Manhattan will be up by the weekend, but the outer boroughs will be down for almost 2 more weeks without additional personnel.  The Mayor used the restored power in those 2 areas to defend his decision saying that those police officers will be used for the marathon rather than helping in other areas. 

It's so bad that both Democrats and Republicans are condemning Bloomberg for allowing the event to continue.  And it's not just Staten Island, he's getting it from all boroughs.  Even runners are saying that they don't think the race should be run now, even forming protest groups ad facebook groups to help rather than run.

I could be too close to the situation, but I think it would make a hell of a lot more sense to postpone the race at least until everyone has power and can get around freely again since "getting back to normal" isn't really a realistic short-term goal for most.

Didn't know you lived in SI Eric.

Yeah we're starting to see the damage in areas that didn't get press the first couple of days. It's insane.

I understand where Bloomberg was coming from holding the marathon but he did relent and cancel it. It was the right decision. The area isn't ready for a marathon right now.

I saw one gas line that was at least a mile long and crossed from Queens into Nassau County.  We're redefining "staycation" this weekend. No car use unless necessary.

Yeah Glen, I moved down to FL in '98, but was born in Brooklyn and raised in SI.

I've seen pics from one friend in NJ of a tree almost splitting the neighbor's house in 2 while he was lucky to have the trees fall away from the house.  One of my friends was fraternity brothers with the cop who dies in his basement on SI after making sure the other 6 adult and the infant made it to the attic. But it's amazing to see that people who have been impacted are still finding a way to donate clothes and supplies to others, taking strangers as well as friends in need in, and overall just rising above all the pettiness that we're used to most of the time.

Another New Jersey blogger here. We lost power, had a bunch of trees fall in our neighborhood, and we had a lot of family and friends lose a lot (my sister's house was damaged by a falling tree, for instance). However, we didn't sustain any major damage to our home, cars, or our church.

We have family staying with us because they still don't have power or heat.

There are extreme gas shortages and we are only allowed to get gas on alternate days (like in the 70s), people are looting and many towns have instituted curfews and are only allowing people out with ID, and people are even stealing generators and license plates!

I wrote a Hurricane Sandy update (which is over 1400 words) on my site…after getting power back.