Anyone else Battening down the Hatches for Irene?

Gandhi

Was out last night getting torches, batteries, new shopvac, lots of canned food, as well as normal weekly groceries. Also stocked up on bread, milk, and eggs, just because everyone buys those for blizzards, so presumably you need them for hurricanes too. Heading out at lunchtime to get piping in case I need to divert the downspouts away from the house.

All the shops seemed well-stocked out in the 'burbs near where I work, but friends have told tales of bare shelves in central Philly.

Anyone else in the cone of death?

Twee.

Woah, where are you located?

I'm Lower Manhattan right by the East River, so we've been told (hype I imagine) to be prepared, but most people are just expecting it to be a really bad storm (as in don't risk the outdoors) in this area, and that the weekend is ruined :pac: Ah New Yorkers.

Have to keep an eye on the news I guess. Beautiful day here, calm before the storm?

Stay safe everyone!


EDIT: Predicting a Category 1 storm for NY on Sunday. Winds in this category up to 95mph.

Gandhi

I am a bit north of Philly.

Hardware shop today was more like I expected it to be yesterday. Jammed with people, and had run out of batteries, torches, generators, and a host of other hurricane-related supplies.

Darren1o1

Yup, NH. Lost power twice today. Damn trees.

Gandhi

Got some water in the basement but was able to get it with a shop-vac and a mop. Just as well I got to it fast as we lost power about lunchtime Sunday (well after the hurricane was gone) and we are being told it will be out until Wednesday. PITA

We also had two large branches from one of our trees come down on a neighbour's porch roof. Just did minimal gutter damage. Overall, not as bad as it could have been.

Gandhi

Power came back on Monday night, though apparently there are hundreds of thousands of people still without it. The saddest part for us was the news that the two enormous sycamore trees in front of our house have to come down.

A friend of mine was driving from Florida to Philly during the aftermath and said he saw hundreds, if not thousands, of power company trucks from Florida driving north to help with the clean-up. They were in convoys of about 40 vehicles. Mostly cherry-pickers, some cranes, some auger trucks, and some flatbed trucks loaded with poles. Some convoys even included fuel tanker trucks and a truck that he described as looking like a petrol station on wheels. Presumably they could all pull over, hook that to the tanker truck, and refuel without getting in line at a petrol station. At a rest stop, he was able to talk to some of the personnel in these convoys and they told him that they were told to get in the trucks and head north. They would be given a specific destination once they got closer.

Spread

Am in NH and still waiting.

Darren1o1

Spread wrote: »

Am in NH and still waiting.

In southern NH we got slammed a bit.