View Single Post
  #1  
Old 11-06-2012, 09:21 AM
VAXman's Avatar
VAXman(Admin) VAXman is offline
progger propellerhead
 
Join Date: Dec 2003
Location: Presently reside in Jackson (southern) NJ (20 miles east of NEARfest 2002 & 2003
Posts: 2,362
Send a message via AIM to VAXman Send a message via Skype™ to VAXman
Sandy -- the aftermath

Many have asked me about the storm and how we weathered (no pun intended) it. I'd relayed some details in the shout box but I figured it best to put the details here once and refer those who ask to this thread.

We seemed to be going quite well on Monday evening when Sandy was to make her landfall. At that time, landfall was predicted to be 20:00EDT. By 21:00 EDT, I was thinking that we might come out of this unscathed and I was shouting about it in the AM shout box. A few short minutes later, the shit hit the fan.

A number of large trees began to fall. One too out the power line one street over. I'm assuming that when the lines fell, the high tension feeds shorted to the community neutral line. The transformer on the pole outside my home and on the poles all about my neighborhood began to explode. When the transformer outside my home exploded, it must have sent a strong surge current through the line which caused my largest UPS to have all of its power transistors explode and catch fire. The basement was filled with noxious smoke and smell, but this was easily aired out by opening windows in the midst of Sandy's furry. Yes, I had a generator and it was immediately fired up. However, there was little desire at that time to bring the computers back on-line because the communications lines were severed too. There was uncanny quite in the VAXcave for the next week.

Reports had stated that we might not have our power restored for as many as 10 days. Because of this, I became very conservative with the use of the generator due to the limited fuel (16 gallons of gasoline). I ran the generator for 2-3 hours at a shot and then turned it off for 4 hours to conserve the fuel. My intent was to keep the freezer, refrigerator and, yes, the beer cold. Radio report said that people were stealing generators so, overnight, the generator was powered off and locked securely in my garage.

Tuesday morning I drove about my community to witness the carnage of Sandy. While our home fared quite well, others were not so lucky. Many of my neighbors had trees which fell on their homes. In my area, there are some very old growth oaks and maples. Their height and the fact that oaks lose their leaves very late in the season meant that these trees were ripe for being felled by Sandy's nearly 100 mile per hour winds. Many of the streets were completely impassable. The fire emergency crews and several local tree companies cleared the fallen trees to allow for roadway passage by the end of the first day.

Day two (Wednesday), I rolled the generator out to the patio to start it up and I put a huge gash in my left forearm as I pushed it through the back garage door. I had no intention of seeking stitches at the hospital emergency room and there was no superglue in the house. I put a large compression bandage on it to hold back the bleeding. Because I'm on Coumadin, a blood thinner, it takes a much longer time for severe lacerations to heal. After starting the generator, I grabbed the now empty 5 gallon gas can and set out in search of gasoline.

At the far end of town there was a QuickCheck convenience store with gas pump and it was operational. I pulled into the queue and hoped that by the time I got to the pumps, they'd still have some gas. As I waited, I fired up the car's router and cellular internet. I was able to get enough signal to telnet to the Deathrow OpenVMS cluster where I have an account. The good Dr. Dot also has an account there. I left him an email telling him that we were all fine and that he should relay that to you concerned moonies. 4 hours on queue and I was finally rewarded with the opportunity to purchase a limited ($40) amount of gasoline. I filled the 5 gallon can and the rest of the purchase went into my vehicle's tank.

Some grocers were open and running on backup generator. Law prescribes that they are not permitted to sell chilled or frozen goods if the temperature of the chillers exceeds some prescribed temperature. So, the dairy, frozen foods and deli were roped off and no sales of those items was permitted. Bread? None to be found. Bottled water? None to be found. Batteries? Only small hearing aid batteries were still on the display hooks. Junk food abounded. Two days later, I dropped into the same grocer to get candles which were, by now, were waning wax. The smell of spoiled food in the air was nauseating.

As you all probably know more than I from having access to communications, the NJ shoreline has been devastated. Tens of thousands, as of this writing an entire week later, still have no electric power. The weather is cold and without power, people cannot heat their homes. Gas is now being rationed on an odd/even schedule based on the vehicle's license tag number. We have natural gas in our home but without electricity, the fan to circulate the heat will not run. We heated the house by cooking and baking.

Sunday morning, I decided to get the gang up and loaded them into the vehicle for a trek to the Cracker Barrel Restaurant (several moonies are familiar with this particular Cracker Barrel as they'd eaten there). Upon arriving home, we saw several utility trucks (TECO -- Tampa Electric), tree service trucks and communications company trucks pulling out onto the main drag (Rt. 526) from our community. I parked the vehicle in the driveway and opened the front door to a pleasant surprise -- electric power and communications restored!

It will be months/years until the NJ shore is back to normal -- if ever? -- and life here is still a long way from normal but we're here safe and with a home -- too many cannot say the same.

Preparation and emergency planning -- like tying the pergola down to the garden tractor, having a generator and a sufficient supply of fuel, food, water, batteries, etc. -- got us through this. The sewer system seems to have recovered as there is no more shit coming up in the basement laundry's slop sink. I'll have to replace the blown UPS but, for now, I can run on line power. The only concern is that tomorrow, we may be reliving this past week's ordeal all over again because of a noreaster heading our way tomorrow.
__________________
VAXman -- Watcher of the moon, watcher of all.
----------------Mopper of the moon, mopper of all.
-------------------- Aural Moon's Janitorial Services
---------------------and Restroom Supplies, and Techno-patsy --

Cogito ergo iMac.         
Reply With Quote