Virgil
Sandy
by , 10-31-2012 at 11:36 PM (8250 Views)
We survived the hurricane safe and sound with no damage to the house. It was a weird night. Our power went down around 9 PM the night the storm hit. I don't we had that much rain, certainly not the foot of rain they predicted, but the winds were wild! It felt the house was standing in the middle of a wind tunnel. The trees were waving like poppies in a field. I had to really coax the dog to go out to relieve herself--smart dog, dumb owner--and as I walked her to the backyard, I kept my eye on the tree in front of the house. As someone pointed out, you never hear of someone surviving a tree falling on them.
I did read with a flashlight that night but kept looking out the window. Every so often you would see a flash of light in the sky my wife thought was lightening. But we realized shortly after that it was over head transformers and electrical lines popping. I didn't get power back until 7:30 PM the next night, and then it went out again at 9, and came back just before midnight. All we had with the power out was a battery powered radio. So I have not seen many images, even as of now, but it does sound like it was pretty bad.
There was a lot of flooding in lower Manhattan. The Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, the underwater tunnel that connects Brooklyn and Manhattan was flooded in with water all the way to the ceiling. The tunnel must be around a mile long, so that's an incredible amount of water that came in over the walls and down the mouth of the tunnel. Here's a picture.
That's the mouth of the tunnel back there and the opening without water is high enough to allow trucks in.
Quite a few trees around the neighborhood were uprooted or fissured. One tree two blocks from my house was uprooted and fell on top of a car. The car was flat as a pancake. I took pictures but I hadn't downloaded the camera, but I guess I didn't need to. Here's the image from Google images of the very car two blocks from my house.
Thank God no one was in there. The death toll I think I've heard has crept up to 40-ish, but that's everywhere, not just New York. I guess that's not too bad for a storm like this. But you know this was not exactly a level four or five hurricane that they get down south and the Caribbean. Goodness gracious, that certainly makes one appreciate just how powerful a storm they survive. I heard the New Jersey beaches got decimated. I found it ironic that the Jersey beaches were destroyed by a storm called Sandy. I'm not a big Bruce Springsteen fan, but he does have a song I like named "Sandy" set on the Jersey shore. The song kept going through my head as I sat in the dark. Here's the song.
With that, thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Certainly there were many Lit Net profile page comments, emails (not from lit net members, though I did get one from Egypt from a former Lit Netter), blogger friends, and even a telephone call from a friend who lives in Scotland. I guess the world was focused on this.
Go to Profile
Mark as Read
