Even though I’m an old hand at natural disasters, this one looks to be special in all the ways you don’t want something to be special. I’ve been through earthquakes, a fire, flooding, riots, blizzards and what hitherto I considered the pièce de résistance, the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980 (stories – I have stories!). But Frankenstorm Sandy is unique – she’s like the girl you dated once who calls you with bad news from the lab.
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| Near Scott’s New Jersey home today |
In a few minutes, Sandy will come ashore around Cape May, NJ, not far south of where I live in the metro New York City area. We’ve been preparing for it by stocking up on provisions, trying to buy “C” batteries (not a one to be had as of early yesterday), looking about the place for possible problems, taking down what hanging planters and Halloween décor we had up outside and making sure the liquor cabinet was well stocked.
But if this goes up a few days late it will be because we lost power, which means my ISP
will lose power. It will be back to the pleasures of my grandparents’ era: reading books, playing board games and getting a good night’s sleep cradled lovingly in my wife’s glorious arms.
will lose power. It will be back to the pleasures of my grandparents’ era: reading books, playing board games and getting a good night’s sleep cradled lovingly in my wife’s glorious arms.
We’re being told to expect 100 mph winds as Sandy sweeps across North Jersey. I believe it – the wind is buffeting our place hard right now, and tree branches whip by as if they were fall leaves in an ordinary storm. Rain started falling earlier this afternoon, and it’s increasing in intensity.
Fairly soon, the ground will be saturated and deciduous trees – the Northeast is mostly deciduous in tree-persuasion – with their shallow roots, will start falling on cars, houses and, sadly, people.
Fairly soon, the ground will be saturated and deciduous trees – the Northeast is mostly deciduous in tree-persuasion – with their shallow roots, will start falling on cars, houses and, sadly, people.
Atlantic City is under water. Access to Manhattan has been foreclosed since by 7:00 pm EDT Monday, all bridges and tunnels into the city will be shut down. Public transportation – trains, subways, buses – stopped running Sunday evening. New York City is under watch by National Guard troops who are patrolling the canyons of the city, themselves experiencing 50 to 60 mph wind gusts.
Sunday night, there were still a lot of flights arriving and departing from the three major airports – Newark – Liberty, La Guardia and JFK International – operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Today, everything was cancelled save an El Al flight from Israel. I guess when you daily face down Hamas and Hezbollah, Frankenstorm Sandy isn’t that big of a deal.
I consider myself fortunate that I was able to fly from Atlanta to Newark on Saturday before flights started getting cancelled. The story of my life includes multiple one-step-ahead-of-the-sheriff episodes – this was one.
Elected officials in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland and other states irrespective of party are uniform in telling, not advising, people to evacuate low-lying and coastal areas. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was his usual blunt self when he told those in Jersey’s Barrier Islands “Don’t be stupid – get out.”
Since the last thing anyone in the world wants is to have Chris Christie call them stupid, people were by and large compliant.
It’s getting ugly outside, and it will stay ugly for several days. But that’s fine because Sandy will make us better people. In New Jersey and New York, only the strong survive, and if it don’t kill ya’, it makes ya’ strong.
The lesson of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is that the government sucks – you can starve and die waiting for those people to show up. If you want to survive a natural disaster, you had better prepare to survive it all by your lonesome. I’m seeing Jersey Guido’s and Snooki’s hunkering down and battening down the hatches to ride this puppy out all on their own. Good on them!
Many of our parents, and certainly most of our grandparents, took gutting out things like this for granted. Of course, this was before Obama phones and the massive increase in food stamp use by those who used to be self-sufficient and self-supporting. Whatever.
Sandy may not be good for our wallets, but there’s a strong case to be made that she’s good for our character.
Whoa – that last howl was a big one!
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