US East Coast weather fun ahead

[Strazos]

Ugh, I'm not going to have much of a choice - in Greensboro today, supposed to be in NJ/PHL Tuesday to see family, and back to WASHDC on Sunday for another week off stuff before going back to Benin...

[JWIV]

It's cool yall,  it's only a tropical storm now.   

 

[Signe]

No, it's a hurricane again.   

[JWIV]

No, it's a hurricane again.   

Oh good.  Glad I didn't buy that case of Boh for nothing then.   

[Chimpy]

No, it's a hurricane again.   

This seems fitting then: http://xkcd.com/1126/

[Signe]

No, it's a hurricane again.   

Oh good.  Glad I didn't buy that case of Boh for nothing then.   

Oh well, thank god that you didn't waste a case of Boh while the entirety of the east coast of the US is flattened and all our loved ones are smushed.  Including the cats!  Dammit.

I don't even know what Boh is. 

[JWIV]

It's pretty much the cheap beer of choice in Baltimore.   National Bohemian.   

[Phildo]

Creepy one-eyed mascot.

Looking forward to a few days off work, I suppose.

[Ghambit]

I dont think people are grasping the surge potential of this thing... including Bloomberg.      

[Numtini]

70mph gusts here on Cape Cod. Crews dispersed all over the coast When it goes off, it's going to be a very long time indeed until our power comes back on.

This is really going to stink.

[Surlyboi]

Windy, but otherwise mild at the moment here. Got all the water, food and booze we need, plus the UPS is primed and ready to kick in when and if the power goes out. Gonna make one last run for doughnuts.

[Sir T]

My brother is in New York. He's not going to be able to get home as they are shutting down the subway at 7pm, so he is staying in the hotel where he works tonight.

[Surlyboi]

We're telling everyone to stay home for the next day or two. No public transit means no one's getting anywhere easily. The supermarket downstairs looks like the last chopper out of Saigon right now.

[Venkman]

Yea I just told my east coast team to stay home. Of course, staying home and "taking the day off" are no longer the same thing. But it does mean more work for my west coast folks when we inevitably lose power. One of the politicians in RI last year said that Hurricane Irene basically proved our infrastructure can handle up to 39mph winds, because at 40, everything fell apart for 3-7 days.

And seriously, this storm's path is absolutey bananas, not to mention it's so large everyone east of Indiana is gonna get a piece of it. It's looking like it'll kinda orbiting MA, CT and RI. But we'll get wind and surge anyway. You can't make this shit up. This might be the first legitimate "storm of the century" since the last one in '91:

[taolurker]

Friend of mine was saying that grocery stores were mobbed yesterday, and wanted to go there today. There's likely to be very little on the shelves and tons of people still out shopping. Winds already gusting to 30mph here in Central NJ. Christie also made his announcement about 2 miles from me about the State of Emergency.

[Venkman]

Bloomberg just ordered an evac and school closures for southern Brooklyn, both Staten Island coasts and lower Manahatten (and the opposite Brooklyn sure).

RI and MA near us are largely out of common batteries, bottled water, and bread now. Generators were gone by mid last week. Halloween is going to suck for the kids this year, but we've resolved to have it as long as it's safe, or move it to next weekend if not.

[luckton]

*sits back on the beach of the Gulf of Mexico drinking a mojito*

Ya'll have fun with that hurricane.  I'll catch ya on the flip side.

[Signe]

I'm getting kind of worried.  Nearly everyone I love is smack in the middle of this hurricane.  Even my cats.   

[Miasma]

Bloomberg just ordered an evac and school closures for southern Brooklyn, both Staten Island coasts and lower Manahatten (and the opposite Brooklyn sure).

The last time he did that it wound up being nothing but a light drizzle.

[Venkman]

I'll take it. So far the path hasn't started veering to the north nor northwest yet (scheduled for overnight), so maybe we'll get lucky.

[Ghambit]

Bloomberg just ordered an evac and school closures for southern Brooklyn, both Staten Island coasts and lower Manahatten (and the opposite Brooklyn sure).

The last time he did that it wound up being nothing but a light drizzle.

Last time he had a smaller storm that went through the carolina outer banks before brushing his city.  This time bigger storm, more surge potential, and no cape protection.  Not to mention a system that's going to be deepening instead of weakening.  Good luck with that NYC.   By the way... in Lauderdale it surged out the beaches TODAY - and the storm was 600nm+ away.   This is not simple cat. 1 scenario.

Anyways, 2nd biggest storm in like the last 60 yrs.  Deepest storm at this latitude since the Long Island Express.  There's so much meteorological nergasming over this thing it's insane.  Yah yah, life and property... blah blah.  But my god Nature if frakkin wicked sometimes eh?   I kinda can't wait to watch the carnage.     Good luck all.

edit: btw, they're predicting near 12ft at the Battery.     Find some good USGS streamflow data if you wanna follow the surge and river heights.

[Rendakor]

We stocked up on water, batteries, etc. here in southern NJ; after how crazy/stressed everyone around here has been because of this, I just want it to be over.

[Teleku]

Welp, looks like I get to stay home tomorrow.  Disaster training has been canceled due to the impending disaster.

I went to the super market to get some supplies.  All the water, flashlights, and batteries were sold out already, so I got several 6 packs of beer instead.

[Khaldun]

Had a dinner party tonight, in Phila suburbs. Anybody coming from more than 15 minutes away cancelled. Which turns out to have been unnecessary for tonight at least--it's pretty mellow so far, but then the fucker is still down by Virginia. Spent most of the morning mucking out our gutters, mulching leaves and getting all our Halloween decorations down except the glowing skeleton that's sitting on a metal frame I pounded 4 feet into the ground. If Frankenstorm can pull that up, we're all fucked anyway, so who cares at that point.

[Sky]

I'm five hours from the coast and people cleared the market shelves of staples, batteries, flashlights, etc. I got a chuckle out of it. Are these people prepping for the apocalypse? Don't you have flashlights and batteries in your house?

I used to live in the country, power could go out for a week. It was a normal thing, you just roll with it. City people funny.

Also, just put up 2/3rds this winter's wood, so the house will be nice and toasty. Almost hope the power does go out, it'll be a nice romantic evening or three, play some guitar around the fireplace, read to candlelight.

Schools are a half-day tomorrow, but the library is open 

[Ghambit]

Johns Hopkins outage models are conservatively predicting 11 million people w/o power.

[Tale]

If this is a fizzer it's going to wreck warnings forever.

[Trippy]

Stay safe out there.

[01101010]

Caught this on MSNBC. Not sure what this person is expecting...

I love watching people around here (Pittsburgh, mind you) overreact as though the world is ending and crushing the markets. People around here seem to need something to panic about...

Living in the South on or near the coast, I gotta say people up north seem to think hurricanes and storm surges and everything that comes with it are damn near end of days in severity. Worst storm I went through, we lost power for a week. Even then, stores were open in two days since commercial zones take priority in power restoration - gas stations, markets, gov't buildings. I guess the media has to have something to spin up the masses into a frenzy... but back in the real world, yeah. There will be damage from wind and water, power will be out, there will be flooding. Within a week, shit will have passed, things will have settled, and people will clean up and move on.

[Numtini]

Living in the South on or near the coast, I gotta say people up north seem to think hurricanes and storm surges and everything that comes with it are damn near end of days in severity.

The emergency planning aspect here is that we haven't had a severe hurricane since Bob in 1991, so we are expecting that any significant storm will cause havoc on power because we have 20 years of tree growth to be blown over onto power lines, not to mention 20 years of development to be washed out to sea.

We also have 20 years of forgetfulness about reasonable preparedness. A few years ago they jacked up the rates on insurance after Katrina and people were up in arms because, and I quote, "Cape Cod doesn't get hurricanes."

[Nazrat]

Caught this on MSNBC. Not sure what this person is expecting...

I love watching people around here (Pittsburgh, mind you) overreact as though the world is ending and crushing the markets. People around here seem to need something to panic about...

Living in the South on or near the coast, I gotta say people up north seem to think hurricanes and storm surges and everything that comes with it are damn near end of days in severity. Worst storm I went through, we lost power for a week. Even then, stores were open in two days since commercial zones take priority in power restoration - gas stations, markets, gov't buildings. I guess the media has to have something to spin up the masses into a frenzy... but back in the real world, yeah. There will be damage from wind and water, power will be out, there will be flooding. Within a week, shit will have passed, things will have settled, and people will clean up and move on.

They have a generator.  That gas is going to keep some of their home powered for a week.  Living near Beaumont, TX, that is less than my normal stack of gas during hurricane season.  For Ike, we were out of power for almost 10 days.  We used the generator to power the fridge and freezer.  Every night, we would power up a TV and watch a DVD with the kids after we used our propane grill to cook dinner.  

Some of y'all have not experienced the entire infrastructure laying on the ground for weeks.  It is not fun.  

[luckton]

How the small towns and fringe areas of the NE are right now.

[schild]

Living in the South on or near the coast, I gotta say people up north seem to think hurricanes and storm surges and everything that comes with it are damn near end of days in severity. Worst storm I went through, we lost power for a week. Even then, stores were open in two days since commercial zones take priority in power restoration - gas stations, markets, gov't buildings. I guess the media has to have something to spin up the masses into a frenzy... but back in the real world, yeah. There will be damage from wind and water, power will be out, there will be flooding. Within a week, shit will have passed, things will have settled, and people will clean up and move on.

Back in the last major hurricane I experienced on the east coast, I lost power for 3 weeks. Didn't bother taking any precautions, did just fine. But I ended up quitting Star Wars: Galaxies because it got patched twice and I had no clue what was going on when I got back. So, grats on only losing power for one week I guess?

[luckton]

Apparently a 1960 replica of the HMS Bounty has been sunk by the storm.  A few people are missing, a dozen or so abandoned ship prior to sinking.

[Signe]

Apparently a 1960 replica of the HMS Bounty has been sunk by the storm.  A few people are missing, a dozen or so abandoned ship prior to sinking.

I was just reading about that.  You'd think one of the first things people on a boat would do during a hurricane warning is leave.  I didn't know that there was anyone left on it to go missing.  :(

My sister has a generator now, but several years ago she and my brother in law had to take turns living in their cars with the heat on for a week or so.  One of their rescued animals is an Iguana and would have died.  They didn't rescue it from someone's cold cellar to let it die in a storm.  She's also very worried about the animals at the wildlife shelter she works at because there's still a few too many to bring all of them indoors.  I'm sure they'll find the room if they absolutely have to, but it's a little scary at the moment.  You can't really stack raccoons on top of foxes on top of otters.  Unfortunately, I'm a psycho-worrier so I'm just worried about everyone and everything everywhere all the time.