A proposed Storm Surge barrier beyond the Verrazano bridge.
Just in case you thought you might have missed some, there was no #5,#6,#7, too boring to keep whining on and on. However, last night for the first time we saw lights on the hills around our house. Ohio Edison trucks whizzed up and down our road, but as of yet we are still on the generator.
It’s a wonderful thing. The house is warm, hot showers abound we even have the dish washers running. It’s dark after 10pm though, pitch black and it’s getting cold outside. I can’t wait to see our gas bill. Running the generator 14 hours a day is like having the furnace on with the windows wide open.
Still we have a choice, and many of our neighbors do not. A lot of them have moved to hotels and left cards so we can let them know when power comes back. The ones who are still sticking it out come out of their houses dressed in thick coats and woolens. Fewer and fewer dogs are being walked up and down the street, diminishing with the rest of the population.
Current estimates put our power coming back on around Wednesday, that will be a wholesome 10 days sans electricity. I wonder how the power company handles the huge surge when the power is first turned back on? Grinder pumps churning through 40 or so gallons of waste, furnaces roaring to get 40 degree houses up to 68 and all those refrigerators suddenly kicking in. Refrigerators draw a lot of power on startup.
All this time we’ve been watching power crews stretching new lines, cutting trees and putting right our damaged infrastructure. Even in these falling temperatures these guys are at the tops of poles, hands blue from the cold, tirelessly getting us back to normal. If you’ve ever lacked faith in Union workers these sights would change your mind. It’s just abominable that we now get scurrilous rumors of “non-union” linesmen being turned away from NJ.
If you’ve heard this then let me assure you it’s not true. There are fearsome anti-union forces in the garden state and this is no doubt a product of their concoction. The truth is there are non-union workers all over the state helping us out. The Alabama crew were instructed to return by their own management when they might have had to agree to union pay scale, management, and safety precautions. Check Snopes for the details. Just more election skullduggery as it turns out. Can’t wait until tomorrow night.
Because we still have FIOS (they put loops of extra cable in their lines so if a tree goes down the cable just gets longer) we’ve been watching CNN and getting our first taste of the unremitting political ads. It’s horrendous, they even out number the pharmaceutical ads, I didn’t think that was numerically possible. Governor Romney is wasting his time in NJ, we’re very blue here. I live in one of the very few Republican dominated areas of the state, however after the President rushed in tens of millions of gallons of gasoline even we’re getting even blue-er.
From our vantage there is not much to complain about FEMA or the state and Federal government. Ok, they did postpone Halloween (somehow our candy disappeared anyway). Things seem slow but we’re actually coming back pretty fast. The question will be what will we do for next year. How do we protect hundreds of miles of shore communities? Whatever it is the project size will be mammoth. Even as far as 60 miles up the Hudson river many marinas were literally ripped off their pylons and moorings, ours included. Boats on the “hard” floated off their stands and went off on their own, or just sank. Water in the river rose up over 9 feet.
There are currently two areas of thought around toughening up the Tri-State water front. One line of thinking supports making infrastructure more resilient. Things like redesigning streets in Manhattan to funnel water and moving heating and electrical infrastructure much higher in buildings. I’ve even seen designs for new wetlands and parks located just off Manhattan to absorb storm surges. I’m not sure how that would help the shore communities, except they’ll probably demand that all new construction be raised, as it is in North Carolina.
The second line of thought involves building new barrier islands along the shore and surge dams in the harbors and rivers. This would effectively be a lot like what Holland and Denmark have done, redesign for the 10,000 year storm. That price tag scares everyone, but something needs to be done or businesses will move out. We’ll probably have to agree on a combination of both approaches.
Yet another storm is moving our way, should be here sometime Wednesday night. It’s not expected to be anything like Sandy, but it does look like it’s bringing snow.
Copyright Prentiss Gray 2012
Prentiss Gray is a writer and columnist and currently writes the Domesti-Tech Blog for Gannett. He can be reached through his website at GrayResearch.net
Prentiss Gray
Prentiss Gray is a writer/columnist/blogger from New Jersey. After 27 years as a Information Systems consultant and the death of his wife of 21 years, he returned to his roots as a writer, creating the national column Adventures of the Lone Dad/ Daddy chronicles. He now Blogs for Gannet on domestic technology, and writes feature pieces and stories for general publication. He is a member of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and contributes to Bloomberg News, Daily Record, Gannett and the Tribune Syndicate.
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Prentiss, as I write this, my oldest daughter (a Red Cross volunteer) is on a flight from Ohio to New Jersey. She won’t learn what her assignment is until she arrives (just in time for the second storm, no less), but she plans on being there for up to 3 weeks…and will no doubt have many a tale to tell when she returns.
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I’m sure she will and she’s very welcome!
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Prentiss my son in South Orange is in the same boat as your neighbors however, he does have a gas fireplace (what what that gas bill is going to be). This morning I called to check on him because I saw a tweet saying that he’s waking up extra early these days. I try not to call to often because he thinks I worry about him too much. He’s sleeping on a couch where the fireplace is and he said after a week of doing that sleeping is not as comfortable as it is when sleeping in one’s own bed.
My friends in Brooklyn and Lodi tell me that as difficult as it is they have see a great deal of goodness come out of this in the way people interact with each other.
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It’s getting colder and colder here and now with another storm on the way it will be wet as well. Still, dug out our old kerosene heater for some neighbors which i think will help a lot. They can be smelly if you don’t start them outside but other wise you get a lot of heat for just a couple of bucks a day.
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Prentiss, why is it non-union workers can’t join the union workers in restoring services?
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They have joined in, there are lots of non-union workers here helping out. That story is baloney. I’d like to call it a misunderstanding, but personally I think it’s just opportunism.
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Glad to hear everybody is pulling together.
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Just to follow up my first comment, Prentiss, my daughter was dispatched to Atlantic City, where she oversees & audits all the cases entered into the electronic system for the southern part of the state. She says one of her biggest challenges is the “homeless living in cars” that were destroyed in Hurricane Sandy – since a car isn’t a permanent address, those people don’t qualify for financial assistance from FEMA. Most of them (400) are being given shelter at the Convention Center, but the city plans to close it at the end of the week, & other shelter locations are already full. It would seem that the city should either change its plan and/or FEMA should cut the red tape & ignore its qualification policy, as Obama said would be done.
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I understand the snow has begun. Saying prayers and thanking God that my child now has power, lights and heat.
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