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Author Topic: Sandy vs. East Coasters  (Read 3283 times)

Offline violaleebrews

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Sandy vs. East Coasters
« on: November 16, 2012, 10:33:04 am »
How are all you east-coasters doing after Sandy?  My heart goes out to y'all!  :(
I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering how things are going amidst the aftermath.

Offline theDarkSide

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2012, 11:22:23 am »
Thankfully Northern New England didn't get hit with this.  I had a lot of wind and rain, and lost power for about 26 hours. 

The devastation in NY, NJ, & CT was unbelievable.  Hope everyone is getting back to normal. 
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Stephen Mayo
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Offline tygo

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #2 on: November 16, 2012, 07:54:23 pm »
It was basically just a bad rainstorm here in Northern VA.  NY/NJ are the ones that got hit harder.
Clint
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Offline The Professor

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2012, 08:45:12 pm »
We got slammed pretty damned hard here in NJ...the shore area is a disaster and nearby Staten Island, NY
(a borough of New York City) is  real mess. Even lower Manhatten is still struggling with phone and power issues. For the first time in it's 100 year plus history, the mass transit system in NYC was totally shut down and disabled by storm damage.

 I'm 15-20 miles north of the Jersey shore area, but it was still pretty intense here, less from the rain and more frm the wind (which I understand topped out at 90mph at times).  Lots of downed trees (including some hulking 100-200+ year old ones, and endless downed utility poles and power lines.  I was without electricity for a week, with a downed pole (and a smouldering transformer) in the street  just a few doors down from where I live.  On Monday night of the storm, the night sky was literallly glowing for miles around from transformers blowing out, as if in a chain reaction.  That was pretty eerie.

Things are fairly stable now, and the gasoline rationing that was in place for  while has finally ended.
Every day though, I'm still driving past  good many downed trees. 
Without question...this storm was by far the  worst I can  remember, ever.
AL
New Brunswick, NJ
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Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #4 on: November 17, 2012, 12:52:44 am »
I grew up on Long Beach Island NJ - parts of it got hit really hard and are still struggling to recover.  Parts were virtually untouched.  I don't really keep in touch with anyone who still lives there though.
Tom Schmidlin

Offline realbeerguy

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2012, 07:44:06 am »
We come from the Central Jersey area like the Professor, and spent LOTS of time on Long beach Island.  Our old house in Lower Sayreville was under 10 ft water (glad I'm in SC). Family in Woodbridge OK, wind little rain, power out 3-5 days.

 Tom, from what I hear the old shack to the right of the LBI causeway is still there!
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Offline tschmidlin

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #6 on: November 17, 2012, 09:24:49 am »
Really?  I heard The Shack was gone.  This is supposed to be before/after pics.

Tom Schmidlin

Offline dimik

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #7 on: November 17, 2012, 10:57:49 am »
NYC got hit really hard. Broken street poles, fallen trees, crushed cars, flying street signs, sand dunes, flooded tunnels, flooded basements, in some places apartments also got flooded (like a couple blocks from me), street lights still don't work in some places. We lost cell network for about a week, briefly lost power, heat and hot water. I escaped with minimal damages, but the basement didn't... I posted some pics on my blog (http://bkyeast.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/unexpected-joy/)
Luckily public transportation is working well again because the city was paralyzed for days and I couldn't get to work.
LHBS survived unscathed, and that's a good thing :)
Hope the rest of you guys survived.
Cheers!
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Offline realbeerguy

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #8 on: November 18, 2012, 11:31:02 am »
Really?  I heard The Shack was gone.  This is supposed to be before/after pics.



Damn!  That thing just won't die!
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Bluffton SC

Offline tonyp

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2012, 09:18:13 am »
I live a few miles from ground zero at the jersey shore and it was a hell of a ride that night. We lost 2 huge trees in our yard, one of which snapped in half and fell across our driveway pulling all of the power lines and fios down to the ground in the process. The other fell a few inches from my car.

We lost power for 9 days and internet/phone for another 4 or 5 after that.

Before the storm we prepared pretty well. I cleaned and sanitized all of my brewing equipment and filled 2 5gal buckets with clean water (capped with airlocks). I bought two 20lb bags of ice and filled my mash tun cooler with beer :D We bought canned goods and other foods we knew we could cook on our 2-burner propane camping stove and my wife had 2 full rain barrels of water outside.

Since we have a well we lost water/heat when the power went out so we basically camped in our backyard the whole time. It was kinda fun for the first 3 or 4 days! We used my floor burner and boil kettle to heat up rainwater for washing dishes and such, then would use that leftover water to flush the toilets. We had quite a system going.

It did get really cold at night but we had a firepit outside and luckily our friends dropped off extra firewood during the week. We had that fire going almost non-stop for the whole 9 days. We spent our nights talking and playing card games by candle and flashlight and i think it really put things into perspective for my son who was having internet- and videogame-withdrawal almost immediately and thankfully he took to playing my drums and riding his skateboard the whole week.

I've seen alot of amazing things that people have done for each other here and the community has really pulled together to help, but on the flip side I've seen aholes selling $100 generators out of the back of their trucks for over $1,000 each and people cutting in line at the gas station just to save 15min of wait time. There are also investigations going on for price-gouging from gas stations, hotels, towing companies and other services.

A friend who is a real estate agent was telling us how people who own summer homes down here are now renting them to people who lost their houses but at 5-10x the normal summer rental rates, which is just absolutely ridiculous.

I'm just happy all of my family and friends are alive and safe, and that's enough for me!
Live from the Jersey Shore!

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"I'll try being nicer if you'll try being smarter."

Offline dimik

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #10 on: November 20, 2012, 09:04:31 pm »
I've seen alot of amazing things that people have done for each other here and the community has really pulled together to help

+1. A lot of people showed true virtue in this crisis.
Check out BKYeast for my yeast ranching adventures and home lab!

Primary: Braggot, Petite Saison, Porter, Herbal IPA

On Tap: RyeIPA

Offline punatic

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #11 on: November 21, 2012, 01:23:12 am »
From someone who endured four hurricanes in six weeks eight summers ago, I feel your pain.  Now is the time you see what people are made of, and who your true friends are.  Forget about FEMA.  They are worse than worthless.

If you were affected by Sandy your life will have an inflection point; life before Sandy and life after Sandy.

I chose to run away.  Three months after that unprecidentedly windy summer/fall I moved to Hawaii.  The last hurricane to hit here was 20+ years ago.
There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way.


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Offline Delo

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Re: Sandy vs. East Coasters
« Reply #12 on: November 21, 2012, 10:28:44 am »
On Monday night of the storm, the night sky was literallly glowing for miles around from transformers blowing out, as if in a chain reaction.  That was pretty eerie.
The glow reminded me of the scene of the world ending in the movie the Road. At least thats how I remember the movie.   Watching the trees bend beyond what I thought would be the breaking point with the glow in the background will be something I will never forget.

My family was lucky by only losing power for a week. A lot of people are a lot worse off and we are doing what we can to help them.  My wife and I do a holiday party for friends and coworkers where we collect toys for tots. This year we are also collecting for people affected by Sandy.  There are a lot of people who will not be in their homes for the holidays.
Mark