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Post by nycgirl on Oct 31, 2012 2:07:21 GMT
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Post by mich64 on Oct 31, 2012 3:11:15 GMT
Oh my goodness! I have been watching all day and the devastation is unbelievable. I hope you and your husband are safe and warm. Did you loose power? Are there places open to get food or supplies?
My brother is supposed to depart for NYC on Friday morning, his friend is supposed to be running the Marathon on Sunday. Not sure if that is going to happen with some airports still being closed, subways not operating, just the logistics of getting people to the start line seem impossible to me.
Hopefully there will not be a health concern with all of those dead rats! I am sure there are many more down in the subways too! These are some of the things we do not think about but that is a reality there right now.
Thank you for taking time to share these photos nycgirl and I hope you and your husband stay safe and hopefully things will begin to return to normal so the recovery can begin.
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Post by htmb on Oct 31, 2012 3:20:55 GMT
Thank you for the photos, nycgirl and boy. I've wondered how you fared during the storm and hope things are not too bad for you. It sounds, from here, like there will be a lot of clean-up that needs to take place before things can get somewhat back to normal.
Thank you for sharing photos with us and take care!
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Post by nycgirl on Oct 31, 2012 3:46:59 GMT
Thanks for the well wishes. We were unaffected here in East Harlem, which is on higher ground. We didn't have any power outages and most of our neighborhood stores are open again. I feel bad for everyone who took a bad hit, though. I got a couple of days off work, but I go back tomorrow. My husband, though, works downtown and his building will probably be out of power for several more days. They may have to move temporarily.
Tod, the subways will be up and running tomorrow, but I imagine the service won't be normal. I can only imagine what hell the airports are right now. I hope your friend gets to run, it would be such a shame to miss the marathon.
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Post by nycgirl on Oct 31, 2012 3:56:05 GMT
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 31, 2012 3:58:06 GMT
Wow ~~ talk about getting it right from the source! Thanks for this report, NYC Boy & Girl.
In the midst of being sobered by all the destruction, I couldn't help but admire the artistry of the photos. Hope that doesn't make me a bad person. What is the dead alien(?) in the 2nd photo, please?
Really, really glad to hear you all are okay & that you didn't get hit too badly. You must have been frightened during some of it though, I imagine.
Modified to add that I see we simul-posted. Whooo, even more amazing pics. Lover the beautiful shot of the ships' spires next to the gleaming modern buildings & the gorgeous da-da shot right below it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2012 5:29:44 GMT
Great pictures!
NYC is so lucky to have been hit with "just" a category 1, even though this will completely revise peoples' opinions of which type of storm is really dangerous and which can be ignored.
I remember when Houston was hit by a hurricane a number of years ago, but with stronger winds, and all of the high rises had huge numbers of windows blown out. That doesn't seem to have happened much in New York -- at least the international news reports have not mentioned it.
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Post by mossie on Oct 31, 2012 8:12:47 GMT
Many thanks for the on the spot report. The drowned rats were a surprise which I should have anticipated. Glad to hear you have come through it all right, I hope everyone else has.
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Post by bjd on Oct 31, 2012 9:23:29 GMT
Thanks for the news, nycgirl & boy. Glad all is okay with you.
It's always a surprise to see how soon people are out and about to see the destruction. The water seems to have pulled back very quickly, for example in the picture of Battery Park. Was it a big wave that came in and out, or did the water just rush forward?
Will this be considered an "act of God" by insurance companies?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2012 11:58:01 GMT
I'm so glad you guys are ok. NYers are real survivors and I'm sure things will get cleaned up and running and rebooted in no time. The level of efficiency there always amazes. Great pics and thank you for taking the time to do this amid the chaos. My friends up on E. 92nd Street didn't lose power either. Other folks out on L.I. didn't fare quite so well. My brother went home to his house to find a 28 foot fishing boat on his front lawn. It could have ended up in his living room, so, in that regard, I suppose he lucked out. Thanks again for this and glad you and yours are safe.
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Post by lola on Oct 31, 2012 16:24:42 GMT
Oh, my, nycgirl. Thank you for those! Great to have nycboy's report from downtown.
Silver lining wise: it bumped off some rats, anyway, and this time I suppose people won't feel cheated at having been warned.
Marathon next week. Sheesh.
Casimira, was there water in your brother's house, then?
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Post by nycboy on Oct 31, 2012 17:10:17 GMT
Thanks for the news, nycgirl & boy. Glad all is okay with you. It's always a surprise to see how soon people are out and about to see the destruction. The water seems to have pulled back very quickly, for example in the picture of Battery Park. Was it a big wave that came in and out, or did the water just rush forward? Will this be considered an "act of God" by insurance companies? I believe the mortgages are federally backed and require hurricane insurance to be issued. Of course the insurance companies will get as sleazy as they can but that's par for the course. The water came in slowly except in cases where it breached something and quickly rushed in. It wasn't like a big wave or anything. It came in and raised to a certain level then hung there for high tide for a while before slowly receding since the exit was blocked by the wind pushing it into the bay. The bay is pretty much the perfect shape for flooding from a hurricane, especially if it lands west-east into the middle of new jersey. The counter clock-wise spin pushes the water along Long Island into the new york bite while jersey blocks it from going forward so it just dumps into the bay. The experts underestimated this, they really need to stop basing them on the category of the storm and put more thought into it's heading, size, and speed. This is why a CAT 1 like Irene brings minimal flooding and the same CAT 1 in Sandy is an order of magnitude more destructive.
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Post by lagatta on Oct 31, 2012 22:42:00 GMT
Can those cars be driven? My electromechanical knowledge is minimal. And how about the flooded subways?
My friends in NYC are fine - of course it depends on the area...
Those are lovely photos, NYCboy. And great report, NYCgirl.
We had minimal damage in and around Montréal - one woman was killed in Toronto and they did have more damage, but nothing like the US Eastern Seabord.
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Post by nycboy on Nov 1, 2012 1:27:17 GMT
Can those cars be driven? My electromechanical knowledge is minimal. And how about the flooded subways? Nah those cars are totaled. Walking around Manhattan then seeing the footage of the other boroughs, and New Jersey and Long Island, it's easy to see how the estimates are over $20B. As far as the tunnels go, I believe 3 of the 7 tunnels under the East River have been pumped out but it'll probably be some time before they could restore service. All the electrical equipment needs to be surveyed then cleaned of the corrosive salt water. The subway tunnels are probably a more difficult system to get back on line than the car tunnels, but they can't really go until after the power is back anyway. Regarding the power; I went to my roof during the storm and it looked like a lightning storm only in many different colors, that was from the substations and transformers blowing up all over the city and NJ. Unfortunately many of these pieces of infrastructure were built at a time when studies weren't prepared or concern wasn't given to the flooding. I can tell you from my experience working on the Hunters Point project in queens that CONED requires their equipment to be installed within the buildings above a certain flood elevation (can't recall offhand the height).
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Post by nycgirl on Nov 1, 2012 4:12:33 GMT
Thanks, everyone. What is the dead alien(?) in the 2nd photo, please? I think it’s a big guitar sculpture. NYC is so lucky to have been hit with "just" a category 1, even though this will completely revise peoples' opinions of which type of storm is really dangerous and which can be ignored. I was wondering who was going to point out that Sandy isn’t, in fact, a hurricane. Well, I’m gonna keep calling it a hurricane. “Superstorm Sandy,” as it's being called now, doesn’t do it justice.
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Post by nycgirl on Nov 1, 2012 4:13:09 GMT
I remember when Houston was hit by a hurricane a number of years ago, but with stronger winds, and all of the high rises had huge numbers of windows blown out. That doesn't seem to have happened much in New York -- at least the international news reports have not mentioned it. I haven't heard much about broken windows, but there was a nerve-wracking incident with a broken crane on top of a luxury high-rise under construction. Fortunately, it did not fall. Here's footage of the ConEd explosions my husband mentioned. We have friends in that area who didn't evacuate like they were told. Thankfully, they're just fine.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2012 13:55:00 GMT
Wow, seeing those transformers blow from the rooftop must have been trippy. I know here, when they go, they make an ungodly.very eerie popping explosion sound. The fires in Queens and other areas were very frightening. I heard some rumors of looting going on in Queens this a.m. The NYC infrastructure is way more efficient than NOLA that's for sure. The grids here are all in a shambles to begin with.
No Lola, my brother's house did not flood. He had just had it elevated only in the last month so he really lucked out. I wasn't even aware of this until the day of the storm and was greatly relieved. He had been wanting to do it for quite sometime. He did get water on his property so, his landscape will be a mess for awhile, it being salt water from Moriches Bay,but, he'll deal with it. I believe the landscape was still a mess from the recent construction.
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Post by nycgirl on Nov 1, 2012 15:03:58 GMT
The destruction in Queens is really shocking and heartbreaking. It's fortunate there were no fatalities there, though. Other places weren't so lucky.
Glad your brother's place is holding up. It's really great that he elevated his house in time.
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Post by nycgirl on Nov 1, 2012 15:11:46 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2012 15:50:02 GMT
Fashion photos have become so weird that those shoes could have easily come from an ad in a glossy magazine!
New York City itself was actually quite lucky because with the water rising so slowly, most of the stuff just sort of floated around and then got back dumped down when the water drained away -- definitely not the unstoppable push that we saw with the Japanese and Southeast Asian tsunamis.
It is always seems amazing how cars can get pushed around so easily, though -- just watertight enough to begin to float and always in the wrong place once they finally sink!
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Post by bixaorellana on Nov 1, 2012 16:43:55 GMT
I went to my roof during the storm ... Oh. Lord. !!!Somehow those interior shots of the cafe and the clothing store bring home the destruction even more. That's probably because I'm distracted by how damned good photographically the exterior shots are! Everything is eerily unpeopled. What time of day were the pictures taken? Really good to hear your brother & his place are relatively okay, Casimira. Does anyone know how the Brooklyn Botanical Garden, Central Park, or any other major green spaces fared?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2012 18:20:29 GMT
The U.S. death toll for Sandy now stands at 88 (157 total with the Caribbean deaths).
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2012 18:22:34 GMT
I went to my roof during the storm ... Oh. Lord. !!!Do you know nothing about young people, Bixa? My mother always told me that when she was in university in Nancy during WW2, all of the students (and she was probably leading them) would run to the roof to watch whenever the Nazis were bombing the city.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2012 18:35:54 GMT
Ha!! I thought the same thing when I saw the shoes pic Kerouac. It does look like it could be an advertisement in Vogue magazine or the like!!
I'm thinking about all those people without power and how it must be getting chilly at night if not downright cold. We always whine about hot it gets here when we have hurricane power outages. I'll take the heat any day over the cold. Cold hurts!!
Great story about your mom K2.
Thanks again guys for the pics and reportage.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2012 19:12:42 GMT
I just spoke with my brother and he said things are getting back to normal (here, In NOLA we would say abnormal.... ) where he is and he took the drive out to the family property today and aside from some tree limbs down everything looks good. I really wasn't worried about my mom's house too much as it sits on Ocean Road in Bridgehampton but is far enough inland by a couple of miles from the ocean to not sustain any flooding etc.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2012 12:39:43 GMT
I'm hearing this a.m. of the 2 children on Staten island drowned as their mother was trying to get them to safety. So so tragically sad. It seems that Staten Island got swacked pretty hard.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2012 13:03:14 GMT
At lot of this can be "blamed" on Hurricane Irene last year. If that one hadn't turned out to be so pitiful, people would have paid more attention to Sandy. But even in areas that get a lot of strong hurricanes, there are always people who think they know better and can ride it out because they are so smart. This poor woman probably had no hurricane experience at all other than her neighbours telling her "don't pay any attention to the news" until she realised that they were wrong and it was time to go -- except that it was already too late.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2012 13:13:23 GMT
I think you're absolutely right K2. Same thing happened here a few years ago when Hurricane Gustave came through. Then NOLA Mayor Nagin was calling it "the mother of all storms". many many people left and it was a 'dud' so to speak. People were pissed off and swore they would never leave again as it caused more havoc evacuating and then worse yet, traffic jams on the interstates, running out of gas etc. on their attempts to return home.
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Post by lola on Nov 2, 2012 15:58:10 GMT
I read that crews are working to remove downed trees in Central Park (on high enough ground not to be submerged, I think) and that it's supposed to reopen by Saturday.
The Marathon debate continues. I agree with whoever made the last argument on that one.
A tiny bright spot: bicycles to commute when gasoline and public transport are in short supply.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Nov 2, 2012 16:48:19 GMT
Thanks for the report nycboy and nycgirl...I'm glad that you guys are OK.
We sat with CNN on all night as the storm was building. It must have been terrifying, especially for all the folks who decided to sit it out.
There were reports on the news of citizens from the less affluent areas affected saying that they're getting no help at all...that they're freezing cold as there's no power. Is help getting to the people who need it? I know that it's still early days.....
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