Hurricane Irene: Yikes!!!

[jessmarimba]

This tree fell in my sister's neighbor's yard. Somehow missed every house, thank goodness. That's her sitting on the tree. I hope they take care of yours soon, Tulip!

[redrhodie]

We have power! Yay! We went without for 27 hours. It was fun until we ran out of hot water, then it became way less fun. We listened to my old boom box, and cooked and ate everything we had that might spoil.

I went for a bike ride this morning, and was surprised by the lack of damage. It was better than some Nor'easters we've had. The new seawall seemed to hold up great. There was just sand and small rocks on the road, and lots of small branches down.

This morning we went to our little cheese shop because we noticed she was opening. Turns out she was giving away all the cheese. She gave my bf at least $100 worth. He's a regular customer, but I still feel bad that she couldn't take any money. But I have to admit, he's very excited about it.

Our local Stop and Shop was also open this morning, but not selling any cold things. I was dreading the long line, but then noticed a register open with no one at it. Then I realized the long line was for coffee, not groceries. I always use a French press, so we weren't affected by the low caffeine.

I'm very glad power is back on, especially to the traffic lights. People were driving like maniacs, and the intersections were scary. Probably not having coffee made them more aggressive.

Hope everyone is okay.

[Fredwina]

From looking at the news, Upstate got hit pretty good. since I was supposed to report for new job this am, I was driving through the worst of it yesterday from Srycause to Albany. They had closed the Turnpike (Thruway?) at my exit, but I had to take a detour to get to the hotel.

[FunSize]

The storm wasn't too bad where i was in western mass. There was a lot of flooding near the rivers though. My bf and I wanted to visit Vermont for mountain biking or road biking... but that doesn't look like a possibility. The flooding in Vermont is really bad. Got a good bike ride in today. 46 miles. I felt like dying as we rode up 66.

[Crankin]

Fun Size, that's a nice road...
I am glad I took my trip to the Berkshires in July and to NY earlier in the month.
The town is going to cart away the remains of the birch trees that fell on either side of the driveway, since they are in the easement. DH and neighbor will fill the hole in.
The power is still off in DH's office in Natick (just in his building). He cleaned up the yard today. I had no issues on my drive up to Lowell and then Lawrence; once I got out of Concord/Acton, there wasn't even any debris on the road. My clients thought the whole storm was a ruse, since there was no evidence of it around them! Yet 6 miles south of my house there's still no power and huge trees down. Several schools that were supposed to open today didn't.

[tulip]

Still no power, tree still hanging over my house. I need to find a place with power and Internet to in order to work. I have some projects that can't wait anymore. Insurance company has been difficult about the tree. Working on that, though.

[Irulan]

Jeez you think your work would give you a break....

[tulip]

Jeez you think your work would give you a break....

I am a consultant and I get paid when when the work gets done--milestones, not hours. I could take the entire week off, but that would delay the next stage of these projects, which would delay getting paid and put whole projects behind schedule, which could jeopardize them since there are lots of steps riding on each other. It's a tradeoff--I work a very flexible schedule and can work from home or wherever I happen to be, but it's not like there are idle people who can take over for me. We are a very small team of three people, and when you lose one person, it's a big deal.

Besides, what would I do at home, sit around and watch my tree sway in the breeze? I've already cleaned my fridge and it's cleaner than the day I bought it. I can't vacuum or do laundry. I've picked up the branches in the yard already...I can't work on my sewing project--my sewing machine dates from 1954 but it's still electric.

I've been working in a cafe all morning and early afternoon and I've gotten alot done. There are many of us power/internet refugees here and everyone is very nice to each other about sharing tables and such.

Still fighting about the insurance, but I have to do that from somewhere with power since I cannot recharge my cell phone at home. Mostly, I just want the tree people to come to take the tree down.

[SheFly]

Well, we were without power at our house (and on our street) for a total of 73 hours. Heard the transformer blow at noon on Sunday, and it FINALLY came back on yesterday at 1 pm. That was the good news.

The bad news was that in addition to losing some food from the fridge/freezer, we lost the entire refrigerator! We went out today and had to buy new. Trying to see if insurance will cover it for us. They will cover the food loss, but the fridge is in question.

We didn't have it as bad as many though - still had running water, hot water, and could cook on the gas stove. We also have a house in Maine, where we were able to take all of the meat from our freezer! Thankfully, we are on vacation this week, so headed north with two coolers full of meat on Monday. When we got there, our road at the bottom was impassable - the Androscoggin had literally risen 18 feet and cut off the town!

We also did a big ride on Tuesday over Jefferson Notch (highest maintained state road in NH - it's dirt and is a b*tch to climb). Going up was no problem, but on the downside (towards 302), the road was literally gone in several sections. It was amazing to see.

For all the naysayers out there, this was a brutal storm.

SheFly

[redrhodie]

Both my and my bf's workplaces are still without power. We both worked today. My job is a lot easier with power tools, and there's only so much I can do without them. I'm not going in again until it's back on. It just takes too long to do anything, and it wears me out physically using just hand tools. Hoping it will be on soon, but the line is just hanging there, with no crews working on it. It looks like it will be a while.

Not sure how my bf's restaurant will function. He's there now prepping for a private party tomorrow night. I don't know what the plan is if power doesn't come back on by then. There's a generator, but I'm not sure if it can handle more than the fridges. This may all be for naught.

[tulip]

The tree issue has been resolved. They had to bring in a huge crane; it was too high and far for a bucket truck. Let's just say that the insurance company came around to my way of thinking.

Red, I hope you get power soon at work.

SheFly, it was brutal indeed.

[bluebug32]

I was in Upstate NY for the past few days, Schoharie County actually, helping my mom clear a 90-foot tree from her yard that had fallen during the storm and dropping clothes and supplies off at her local shelter. Many towns in the county were just destroyed, houses floating down the street and the National Guard is everywhere. Many buildings have already been condemned and sad to think that many could not afford flood insurance or were advised against getting it based on their locations. Now they have nothing. Closer to home, Windham and Hunter were hit hard too. They got 16 inches of rain. I was talking to someone who had a 3 ton bulldozer get washed out of his yard, never to be seen again.

[Fredwina]

Schoharie County did get pretty hard. My boss jokingly told me "Since you came here with Irene, you can do the programming changes for it". I'm working for OTDA(Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance) and there are some rumors that there may be some special benefits coming.

[bluebug32]

Good to hear! You just moved to the area? Welcome...I grew up in Cobleskill, but am living in the Hudson Valley now.

I'm going to volunteer in the Catskills tomorrow to help some of those who were hit hard by the hurricane. Wish I could be in Schoharie County though.

[Koronin]

Glad the tree is taken care. Hope you all start seeing some improvements soon. We were hit too badly here. Some wind damage is all, but the Outer Banks (esp Hatteras Island) got hit hard. There are 3 new inlets. They are filling in two of them within the next month and redoing the road, and the 3rd is getting a temporary bridge until that one can be refilled in. That road is the only way on or off the island other than by ferry and the ferry only runs to another island that is only accessible by ferry. Also without the road they can't even start to fix the electric coming onto the island. Both Hatteras Island and Ocrakoke Island are being fully powered by generators. Tomorrow (Sunday) they will be starting to allow residents back onto Hatteras Island, but only to the southern most towns of Hatteras Village, Buxton, and Frisco. The northern towns (Avon, Waves, Salvo, and Rodanthe) still remain under a mandatory evacuation. Ocrakoke Island started allowing residents back earlier in the week.