Super Storm Sandy & The Fall Out

Well, Sandy – aka ‘The Storm of the Century’, ‘Franken-Storm’, ‘Super Storm Sandy’ has moved out and has left the east coast in a daze. All the stuff that was predicted by stern weathermen happened – evacuations, floods, rain, beach erosion, powerful winds, power outages and eventually even more.

A crane dangling in New York City! I’d love to know the guy who did that! What was he thinking? I guess it was just quitting time and he figured it would be ok just leaving it there. Maybe just taking the keys out of it he thought was enough. Sandy was pretty intense.

Supposedly they don’t even know how to categorize Sandy. She wasn’t a hurricane. She wasn’t a tropical storm. There was snow involved in some areas, but she wasn’t a blizzard. It really doesn’t matter how they want to define her, everyone who unfortunately met her will remember her. She’s caused a lot of pain for a lot of people.

It will probably take months for them assess the damage and Sandy’s impact will be felt for a really long time.

It’s pretty heart breaking to see some of the damage Sandy left behind. I realize the majority of the planet now equates New Jersey beaches with the show The Jersey Shore. It’s a stereotype that seems like it will be around for a long time. I never even watched that show once, but I’m fully aware of the perception viewers take away from it.

Really, the New Jersey shore is nothing like that. Well, maybe parts of it are, but the majority of it is really nice relaxing beaches and communities. Every summer I end up going to the one beach town I’ve been going to since I was little. It’s really agonizing to see what happened to it.

This isn’t to say only the coastline has been crippled, but towns all over got battered. It’s almost as if since Sandy left the state and the whole tri-state area has been in shock and doesn’t know what to do. Getting back to normal is nearly impossible.

Power is still out all over the state. You drive all around and traffic lights aren’t working, stores are closed. Trees are down everywhere with wires all tangled around them. Cell phone reception is a crap shoot, if your lucky enough to find somewhere to charge your phone.

Gas stations – the ones that have electricity – are madhouses. Mile-long lines of cars and people holding gas cans waiting to get some kind of fuel, either for their cars or their generators that they’re living off of now. Inevitably patience is wearing thin and there have been some unfortunate altercations among them.

Now that gas rationing has been put in place maybe that will ease things up. Now that it has gotten colder it’s just adding to the problems. Plus, predictions of possible snow heading towards us….not good.

It’s all pretty crazy. It’s almost like that show Revolution, where there’s no power on earth (at least I think that’s the premise of that show). I’d be curious to know how the news is reporting this in other areas. I assume they must be talking about it. It’s already said Sandy is the fourth costliest U.S. catastrophe sitting behind Hurricane Katrina, 9/11 and Hurricane Andrew.

I was very fortunate. I was fully prepared for my power to go out, I had my candles, my flashlight, but my power stayed on. The ironic thing is that I’m right on the line of streets between the ones who have power and the ones who lost it. From my street on the rest of my neighborhood is in total darkness. It’s a surreal feeling to look one way at homes lit up and you turn around and there’s not one light anywhere.

I’m purposely using the present tense here because since the power went out five days ago it is still out. This is for A LOT of people all over. I’ve heard some people were told it could be later next week when it will finally be restored.

I never thought things would become this chaotic. I would have predicted right now I would have been anticipating seeing Skyfall or maybe talking about this new Star Wars trilogy that is going to be made by Disney, but it’s hard to focus on anything else besides what’s happening around here.