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It's a HURRICANE!

I know this is supposed to be a big one. I also remember Hurricane Tropical Storm Floyd that was supposed to be enormous. If you're in the south, I hope you stay safe. If you're up north like me, it's gonna be wet, but stop fucking panicking.

Floyd was a Hurricane when it hit NC. It was pretty devastating to our county.

Satellite image of Sandy from Oct 27:

The news back then was saying it "wasn't too bad." Though they were comparing it to Andrew, which I was too little to remember.

As for Sandy, I may need to eat my words. I can't even go to work tomorrow because everything's shut down until further notice. My boss wants us in for just the early morning (optional) but I don't see how I can do it.

It is silent outside. No cars, no bugs, no wind. Fucking eerie.

Had a boss tell me I had to come in the morning after a snowstorm. Cars were abandoned on the side of the road due to sleet. Windshields were solid blocks of ice.

I was like, yeah.... no?

Best of luck to all who are in Sandy's way though.

Best of luck to the lot of you. Stay safe and try not to get blown away.

Didn't do a damned thing here apart from make it deliciously cool today... yesterday it was humid though. Yech...

Hope folks up north are staying safe, though

Best of luck and best wishes to the folks in the path of the storm.

But I just have to get this out of my system. Every time I see a mention of this hurricane, I start hearing a song in my head.

Saaandy
Can't you seeeee
I'm in miseryyyyyyy

I didn't know you could have fog and heavy wind at the same time. This storm is weird as hell.

Took a hot shower while there's still power. It'd be nice not to lose power. Really nice. Haha.

It is strange being near the Gulf Coast and dealing with a light frost this morning while New Jersey deals with a Hurricane.

reminder that climate change is a liberal myth

Thank the darkness my town all-ready drained the lake. Never felt I'd be so relieved to see those withered old stumps.

So with what would've been the work day winding down, I gotta say I feel like things around here didn't need to shut down. My area's been spared the worst of it so far and what heavy snow and rain I can see on the radar seems to be keeping west of us. That said, no idea what tomorrow will be like. And for all I know, had I gone outside, I'd feel things went much worse. As it is, in my illusion-brain, I could've gone to work today had the area nut shut down.

The alternative, of course, is to leave businesses and colleges and such open, and then have to worry about people not being able to make it home safely at the end of the day, and face potential litigation because of it. Unfortunately, these days, the powers that be are pretty much screwed either way. I know any time that they pre-emptively close schools over here for winter storms, if there's no snow on the day it was forecast everyone's up in arms about there not having been school; but then when it does snow, if it's not predicted to be a major event and schools aren't closed, everyone's up in arms about them having put their children at risk and we wind up with 10 hour commutes to go 10 miles.

I'm worried about my parents.

EAST COAST POSTERS, CHECK IN PLEASE

Personally, the winds here (SW Ontario) are getting faster and it's been raining for like 4 days. Our house is basically built on a sand hill so I'm not worried about any potential flooding but we've been instructed to charge our chargeables and prepare for power loss.

Power's already out in some parts of Waterloo. See you in a couple days, maybe.

Waiting for work to call me in, we are on 24/7 oncall here until Friday. Wind is starting to pick up outside. If power goes down, I will just say fuck it and head to the office for the night.

I've already had one flight canceled and I'm in Ohio. Should be interesting to see if I get home tomorrow.

Espy said:

I've already had one flight canceled and I'm in Ohio. Should be interesting to see if I get home tomorrow.

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I hope you're not at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport, because they just announced all flights there have been canceled.

I'm not. I'm in Cincinnati. Currently US Airways is giving the green light for tomorrow so we shall see.

Philadelphia checking in. Windy and rainy, but so far s'all good boss

Hugs to everyone affected by this storm. Please be safe and let us know how you're doing when you get the chance. You're in our thoughts and prayers.

People probably won't be able to check in for a while. They have bigger fish to fry and are probably losing power. Last I saw was 1.5 million customers.

Hope everyone is alright.

On a side note, how much is the U.S. hit by 'natural disasters' anyway? Hurricanes, but also things like earthquakes, floods, maybe even volcano eruptions? As far as I can remember nothing big ever happens here (then again my country is of course tiny in size)

My thoughts exactly Emrys.

I really hope everyone is okay and hope you all can check in when you can.

I feel very...affectionate, mother-hen, I just want to hug everyone and keep them safe....

Jax said:

On a side note, how much is the U.S. hit by 'natural disasters' anyway? Hurricanes, but also things like earthquakes, floods, maybe even volcano eruptions? As far as I can remember nothing big ever happens here (then again my country is of course tiny in size)

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As far as I know every area in the US can be hit by one sort of natural disaster or another. Some areas have a higher chance, but between earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, ice storms, mudslides, wildfires, etc. I'm pretty sure just about everywhere gets something at some point.

Looks like it's taken down Gawker and all it's affiliates.

Maryland here.

It's wiiiindy!

Heard from my mom. Things are ok in their area, just very windy and rainy. They still have power, too. She told me it was nothing worse than any other storm they've dealt with in the past.

South Jersey represent. Windy as fuck, certain roads are flooded but not too flooded, and the power is still on. As said by WasabiPoptart , not as bad as any other strom I just wish I wasn't in a treey area...in a hurricane.

Far said:

Looks like it's taken down Gawker and all it's affiliates.

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And nothing of value was lost.

Pittsburgh area is closing quite a bit tomorrow. We've just got a lot of wind and rain for now. 60 MPH gusts predicted for tomorrow. Relatives in the Beckley/Princeton/Bluefield area may see as much as 2 feet of snow.

Florida here... everything's fine, but getting a little chilly.


That felt weird to write.

Far said:

Looks like it's taken down Gawker and all it's affiliates.

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\

this hurricane ain't so bad after all!

NC, just south of everything. We've had decent winds and it was raining most of today. From what I've heard there's a lot more rain on the coast.

DarkAudit said:

And nothing of value was lost.

Pittsburgh area is closing quite a bit tomorrow. We've just got a lot of wind and rain for now. 60 MPH gusts predicted for tomorrow. Relatives in the Beckley/Princeton/Bluefield area may see as much as 2 feet of snow.

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My grandparents live in Mt. Pleasant, south of Pittsburgh. I should probably give them a call.

North Jersey here. Lot of flooding over here, had a few brownouts but power is still on. I'm on the 25th floor of a hi-rise, so I am totally dry.

Seeing southern Manhattan's lights flicker in concert is a bit freaky.

Winds sound pretty calm over here...uh-oh.

Uhm, wow:

Pleasant Prairie issues a voluntary evacuation order.

This might not sound like much, but consider this - Pleasant Prairie is in Wisconsin. On the Illinois-Wisconsin state line.

The reports are saying that they're expecting 14-18 foot waves along Lake Michigan, which could affect portions of the shoreline.

jwhouk said:

Uhm, wow:

Pleasant Prairie issues a voluntary evacuation order.

This might not sound like much, but consider this - Pleasant Prairie is in Wisconsin. On the Illinois-Wisconsin state line.

The reports are saying that they're expecting 14-18 foot waves along Lake Michigan, which could affect portions of the shoreline.

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....well my holy-shitdar just went off the roof.

Most of NYC is out fo power.

http://instagram.com/p/RYxLr7uhF4/

Water in the streets

http://i.imgur.com/cqMKH.jpg

And subway

http://imgur.com/0whJw

Explosions

Side of a building inn NYC has collapsed.

Is that crane that was on top of that high-rise still dangling over the edge?

Jay said:

Side of a building inn NYC has collapsed.

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During the walk up to the building, I thought it was going to be a video of it collapsing and thought it was going to be the larger one just behind it. Was very worried the video was going to take a much darker turn.

jwhouk said:

Is that crane that was on top of that high-rise still dangling over the edge?

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It was the last report I saw, but the base of the crane had turned from being pointed south to being pointed southwest; and the winds were expected to pick up.

Winds are picking up over here, damn door almost fell off when I was checking on the rabbit(house door, not the rabbit cage door). Should I bring in the rabbit? Its cage is heavy so I don't think it'll fly away but I'm still not sure. ADVICE PLEASE!

Reports of a foot of snow an hour south of here. Mom called Grandma in Bluefield, they only have a couple of inches so far. I-68 in Preston County isn't closed... yet, but it's a near whiteout to the MD border.

Just a lot of wind and rain at the house, but there's reports of snow elsewhere in town.

DarkAudit said:

Reports of a foot of snow an hour south of here. Mom called Grandma in Bluefield, they only have a couple of inches so far. I-68 in Preston County isn't closed... yet, but it's a near whiteout to the MD border.

Just a lot of wind and rain at the house, but there's reports of snow elsewhere in town.

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Dude, most radars I've seen has most of WV in a solid sea of WHITE.

Add the 30-40 mph winds, and... (shudder)

Yoshimickster said:

Winds are picking up over here, damn door almost fell off when I was checking on the rabbit(house door, not the rabbit cage door). Should I bring in the rabbit? Its cage is heavy so I don't think it'll fly away but I'm still not sure. ADVICE PLEASE!

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Can you get it inside safely?

evilmike said:

Can you get it inside safely?

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I think so, its still pretty windy. Should I go for it?

Edit: Went for it. Rabbit is snugg in its temporary beer box home.

Good idea.

Overnight/early morning updates:

• 6-alarm fire in Breezy Point neighborhood of Queens - upwards of 50 homes burning.
• US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently monitoring the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant in NJ - which is currently in a planned outage - after the water level has exceeded the plant's criteria for high water.
• NYU Hospital has been evacuated, including PICU and NICU, after their basement flooded and their backup generators failed. At least one other hospital in the area also has a flooded basement, but no injuries reported.
• MTA is reporting it could take up to 4 days to empty water out of the subway tunnels.

Getting nailed with a nasty snow storm with 60 MPH winds here in Ohio. It's been 20+ years since we've had snow on Halloween. I can barely imagine what it's like further east.

It's going to be very interesting to see what happens as the storm moves west, since it was originally forecast to hook north and then back east over the water when it came ashore, but it doesn't look like that's going to be the case this morning.

Haunting wind map.

All's well in Philadelphia suburbs. A lot of flooding but not the worst we've seen.

I think my wife and I are just in a lucky part of Maryland; the wind blustered a bit last night, but this morning its a middling rain. Not much flooding that I can see.

I'm sure on the east end they got a hell of a lot more water.

Snow started to stick to the ground just after 6am, making the drive home a slushy, slidy mess. CNN did a live standup from Kingwood, about a half hour east of me. They got it a whole lot worse.

A guy at work was "joking" that the NE was hit by the hurricane because of all the bad behavior up there...

I replied, what does that say about us, we've been hit by 20+ hurricanes since the last time they took one.

Wind is picking up in Wisconsin, despite it being a basically clear day.

Mid-lake buoy on Lake Michigan is at high levels. That flooding advisory is still in effect.

We were fine in Markham, ON last night. High winds, power outages. Our lights blinked a few times before we went to bed, but I know that there are still sections of the GTA without power now. Only one fatality reported in Toronto last night due to the storm - Woman was killed by a flying store sign that blew off.

The worst that happened to us was that we were delayed 40 minutes taking the wife to work this morning because of traffic lights being out, and people not knowing how a 4 way stop works. Granted, it's a little hard to do when you have 3+ lanes each direction.

Gared said:

• US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently monitoring the Oyster Creek Nuclear Power Plant in NJ - which is currently in a planned outage - after the water level has exceeded the plant's criteria for high water.

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It can take weeks to cool off a reactor completely so it no longer needs active cooling (and some reactors can never be put in a state where they don't need active cooling), fortunately this one has been shut down since the 22nd. Since the Japan earthquake all nuclear plants near the seaboards have taken additional steps to prevent the possibility of extraordinary flooding preventing them from continuing plant operation. In this case they met the minimum high water mark early in the storm, then the maximum high water mark recently, though they expect the flooding to subside. These high water measurements are at the plant's water intake, and the plant itself is still higher than the flooding. The NRC dispatched additional nuclear inspectors to all plants that might be affected by the storm prior to landfall, so they are getting a steady stream of updates and any actions that need to be taken will be in a timely manner.

So for none of the plants have shut down due to the storm. http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/reactor-status/ps.html As it turns out, though, many plants in that region are in a scheduled shut down for maintenance anyway.

Given that the 25 year relationship between the red cross and the LDS church became more formal: http://fox13now.com/2012/06/20/lds-church-red-cross-announce-new-partnership/ in june:

The American Red Cross and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints made an announcement formalizing their partnership on Wednesday.

The two organizations have had a working relationship for the last 25 years. The memorandum signed and relieved Wednesday layouts a framework of the LDS church capabilities and capacity of support to the Red Cross.

“We are more prepared than ever for when disaster strikes because of the relationship that we have with the LDS Church,” said Gail McGovern, president and CEO of the American Red Cross. “We also want the public to know how grateful we are for their support on so many element of our mission.”

LDS churches can be used as shelters as well as approved blood service facilities. They will also work with the Red Cross on preparedness drills.

The LDS church said the agreement is more robust in defining their role and revitalized the decades old partnership.

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we will probably be seeing these types of pictures in the news leading up to the election. There are some areas that are still going to be needing power and cleanup during the election, and it makes me wonder how much this storm will depress blue-state voting along the eastern coast because people will simply be too busy to vote. It probably won't affect the overall results due to the way electoral votes works, but there's going to be speculation. Obama's already out ahead of it, knowing that any delay is going to cost him critical votes: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_...ama-deserves-great-credit-for-storm-response/ Not much the Romney campaign can do to increase their visibility during this time without appearing to politicize the disaster. If anything they've gone quieter.

Either way, I hope those who need help get it soon. It's hard that it's such a slow moving storm - there are areas that will be hit for days and won't be able to receive emergency services for a few days after it slows.

My brother, 45 minutes inland in NJ, just got his power back on, and the storm wasn't too bad in his area. I'm amazed at the reports of surge and waves on the lakes around me though. Yeah, it's really windy, and it sucks that we're getting all the cold canuickistanian air right before halloween, but even 5 foot waves on the great lakes are bad. 10-14 foot waves is just ridiculous (insert the edmund fitzgerald song here - "when the gales of November came early"). Still, it's just business as usual here.

Stay safe everyone!

Heard from my mom again. She said the trees are intact, electricity is on and their basement is amazingly dry. My best friend in PA is without power. Another good friend in PA is also without power because of a downed pole.

Things in my town are pretty calm as of the moment, but I hear the rain will pick up at any time. I'm just glad I still have power is all I'm saying.

Still raining here a bit, but much less windy. We didn't lose power overnight, but my neighbour's fence fell down into our backyard.

Gusto said:

my neighbour's fence fell down into our backyard.

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That's it, there goes civilization.

GasBandit said:

That's it, there goes civilization.

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My dad's HAD it with that fuckin' fence.

LAST STRAW.

Yoshimickster said:

Edit: Went for it. Rabbit is snugg in its temporary beer box home.

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Awww... that sounds cute. Pictures, please? Once the wrath of Poseidon is over, of course...

North_Ranger said:

Awww... that sounds cute. Pictures, please? Once the wrath of Poseidon is over, of course...

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Maybe a little late for that, storm has all but died down over here. BUT- pictures of the rabbit I shall post anyway. As she is cute.

Windy day around here. Apparently Lake Michigan hit its record high level at 20.3 feet (I may be wrong in that measure, sorry). Apparently, the wave forecast has gone down as of late, so the voluntary evacuations have been stopped in SE Kenosha County.

Even in Toronto we were getting crazy amounts of warnings. They weren't evacuating anyplaces or anything, but they were asking residents to get 72hour emergency kits ready, take out $500-$1000 in cash because debit systems could be down for a few days, all this stuff. Woke up this morning, clear blue sky, some more leaves on the ground, not even windy anymore. I know how bad it hit New York, but man I have to say I was almost a little disappointed in how it showed up here. Though parts of the city are without power. One person died when she was hit by a sign that came loose in the wind.
There was also a big fire, but I don't think they think it was in anyway cause by the storm. From what I'm hearing, it sounds like there was an explosion.

Sandy brought down Blip for the better part of the day today.

Bowielee said:

Sandy brought down Blip for the better part of the day today.

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Yeah that was a bit sudden. Shows the internet still relies on brick and mortar to support it.

Sandy was truly an incredible storms near the top of the record books for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. I went to the New Jersey coast and experienced just some of what it had to offer on Monday. Didn't capture some of the more dramatic scenes out there, but now that I see what there was, I'm kind of glad that I didn't see the worst of the devastation... would have been hard to take all that in. It was odd to see so many people out and about along the coast... don't know if there's just that many people in NJ who are that dumb, or if they just didn't think the storm was going to be that bad. Even at the height of the storm, people were driving around as if nothing was going on while gusts to hurricane strength were pushing through.

Now the dunes are gone and the coast is left exposed. Another coastal storm is in the works for mid-week, and though it won't be nearly as bad, the coasts are vulnerable to any type of storm and this will just be insult to injury.