Hi PM2, We, too, have oil and electric so I used a neighbor's propane grill to heat the water in my kettle then poured it into the press. My popularity rose as a result of my large supply of coffee and that French press, but afterward, I did buy a 2 burner Coleman portable stove ($50) and I have a tank of propane so now I can cook on my own deck (and risk a lower level of popularity). Last time I cooked everything I could from the freezer and for many nights - combined with neighbors - we all ate too much. Dogs got steaks too -- we all survived quite well, but certainly did lose some freezer food.

Generators: Last year, as soon as our road opened after a week, the noise in the neighborhood rose because of people buying gas generators. My household is senior, and like you, I don't want another gas engine or temperamental anything to have to take care of. Plus, I'm not going in search of gasoline to keep a generator going. I have Bio-bricks for the fireplace,(gave up wood chopping) D battery camping lanterns, candles, manual everything, 2 five gal. bottles for water plus plastic gallon jugs, and lots of Wet One wipes. One luxury I might seek is a solar powered charger for a few items, but last year I used the car to charge cell phones. With luck, we won't need any of the above.

Jane

Jane, we do have a grill, but it wasn't working last year, but it is this year. I hadn't thought of heating water on the top of it. I just remembered that we have a side burner on the grill, great idea. Does it wreck your good pots? A Coleman portable is a good idea too. Are you able to connect it to the same size propane tank that you connect to a gas grill or do you buy the canisters? I'm adding checking how much is left in the propane tank to the list. We have a lot of soup in our freezer that would be easy to heat up on that side burner.

Our neighbor bought a generator after last year's power outages. I have to wonder if enough people have them, if it would be hard to find gas after awhile.

Okay, so what are some of the manual ways you are doing things? Manual can opener. A whisk and potato masher. We don't have one of those hand rotary mixers any more. Washing clothes in the sink. Clothesline. Broom. That's all I can think of, did I miss something?

You use your fireplace? I was debating using the fireplace. We have a small supply of firewood, but I always feel torn, that more heat is going to go up the flue and the house will be colder and the only warm spot is right in front of the fire. But if it gets cold enough, any warm spot would be great I suppose.

It does seem to be looking like we may miss the worst of it. I was encouraged to hear on the news that after last year, Massachusetts now requires Power Companies to be more accountable and present a plan ahead of time for how they are going to prepare for the storm. They have to have a well staffed call center now too. I know in our neighborhood there was a lot of trimming of trees around the power lines after last year, too.

What I don't understand, is why we get more frequent power outages that last longer now. When I was growing up, we never lost power for more than a couple of days even in really bad storms. We went through a lot of hurricanes when we didn't lose power at all. It's odd.

Great ideas, Jane. Thanks

I just mentioned to my husband that he should buy lots of bags of ice. We have two extra fridges in the garage that I use as flower coolers in the summer. We can keep the ice in there and if we lose power, we can use the fridges as giant coolers. We can move some of the meat (I have a beef csa so I have a fridge-top freezer full of meat) into one of the other fridge-top freezers and pack with ice, and then move some of the ice into the space freed up by moving out the meat in our house fridge. I'm hoping we won't be without power at all, but if we are, I'm also hoping it won't be for 6 days like after Irene. Honestly, though, for me the worst thing about being without power is not being able to flush the toilet!

We considered a generator after Irene, but it was literally AFTER Irene, a few days after, when they doubled in price and we were convinced that the day we bought one (for that doubled price) the power would come back on! I don't know if I could stand the noise of it. I wouldn't need to power that much (like I said, I'd just like my well pump to work) but my DH would probably want to power as much as possible, so I imagine it would running - and noisy - for more than I'd care for.

So, we're going to get jugs of water (mostly to flush with!) batteries, charcoal for our grill, ice for our meat, and some kind of food that doesn't need refrigeration or cooking - we ate a lot of crackers after Irene, lol! Oh, and cash. Might have to have cash on hand.

PM2, I wonder if your question about power outages now vs. then has anything to do with demand? We have to power a lot more things these days than even just 30 or 40 years ago. I don't know... I just know when I was a kid, power outages were fun. But we had a gas stove, city water - the only thing we really didn't have in an outage were lights. Not so much fun now when you can't flush a toilet, lol!

Dee

PM2, I'm guessing that the reason we lose power so much now (compared to in the past) is because of all the development and the overhead lines here in CT and MA. When I drive through our town and others, I'm amazed at the many, many trees planted at the edge of the road AND right underneath the power lines. Stupid! Sure, CL&P and UI trim the trees away from around the wires, but in doing so they leave deformed trees and maybe also weaken the tree's structure.

Jane, I also have a fear of gas appliances, but my DH is a retired master machinist. One of the first things he bought for our home was a generator. Last time we lost power, he strung insulated electrical cords to two of our neighbors, and we were able to help 3 households. We'll see what happens this time!

The track of this storm is still unclear. No one can predict yet where it will "land". But I've heard we all could face severe winds that will be the bigger problem with this huge storm. Luckily for us New Englanders, the snow will stay in the midwest. (Sorry for them.) So as long as we're all relatively warm, we should be able to tough it out. Loss of frozen foods is a loss of money. I just hope there's no more severe damage than that --- not loss of property or lives. Too many people were hit hard by the last big storm. Hopefully Sandy will spare them this time.

As for our personal preparations --- this neighborhood is powered by gas. We can use the cooktop, our propane outdoor grill, and heat the main floor of the house via a gas fireplace. Plus we have manual can openers, paper plates, etc., and lots of wine!

Good luck to all of you.
Molie

Jane,

Your bird picture is great!! I get them too in my back yard - but usually not until winter is really here. So I'm crossing my fingers I won't see one for a while yet!

Cheers,
Helen in Malden, MA

Dee, I have a lot of plastic quart containers that I'm going to fill up with our filtered water and put those in the freezer instead of buying ice.

We used to view power outages as fun too, Dee. But we never went 5 days w/o power either. We loved getting the candles out and 'roughing' it. Played scrabble and cards, and there was usually some ice cream in the freezer that was going to have to be eaten before it melted. (g)

Molie, I find it difficult to comprehend how anyone can plant a tree right under a power line, but on every street you see them one right after another. And they're not small trees, they're maples and oaks etc. The power lines had to be there before the trees were, so I just don't understand it.

In my area, it's not so much that people plant trees under the power lines, I think - it's that trees plant themselves! I'm in a more rural suburb, lots of patches of woods and scrub, etc, and many of the wires go through these little wild patches.

I've got my own little patch of sassafras trees that just won't go away, and they go right through the power lines. After Irene, the UI came to my door and said "Sorry, we have to cut down that patch of trees" - sorry? I was like, hell yeah! Finally I can get rid of them. Well guess what has been growing back since then? Sigh.

PM2, that's a good idea about the quart bottles. Unfortunately I don't have any. But the upside on the ice is that if we don't lose power, my DH uses a lot of ice so he'll have a supply for awhile. :)

Just came in, taking a break from cleaning up the yard. Sheesh, I have so many little things around the yard. Tons of plants in little 4-inch pots, tons of dead plants in 4-inch pots (i.e. 4-inch pots of dirt, lol) tons of empty 4-inch pots, 5-gallon buckets I use all the time...And then there's my pot ghetto (real, good plants in large pots, not to be confused with all the random pots around the yard!)

I've got a really messy yard, I'm afraid, and it seems lately the only time it truly gets cleaned up is when we are threatened with hurricane-force winds. This time I will try to keep it clean, lol!

Dee

OK, I'm done. Tomato cages are put away. Perennials from the driveway pot getto are actually planted. Porch chairs put away. Two 5-gallon pails of leaves I wanted to dig into one of the veggie beds are in one of the empty compost bins. I even decided to divide an iris that I know was a tangle of two plants when I got it. It became a big tangle. Maybe I should have dug it up and seperated things in late October but I never seem to get it done in August. Fingers crossed. Accidentally dug up a small clump of spring bulbs which already show about an inch of leaves. Is this normal?

Mayflower Viburnum has a few blooms. I found a dark red annual poppy blooming in the debris pile. Lawnmower put away under the barn.

We have a noisy used generator which is only large enough to run the important things. I believe you can get quiet generators. DH is an electrician so he bought some transfer switches on Friday. Last time people needed generators hooked up, there was a 3 month wait because of the big storm last year. Neighbors had bought a generator but never had it hooked up.

A friend in CT had a terrible time. Many days without power. Power was finally restored but the wires hadn't been tightened. A truck came to deliver a generator to one of her neighbors, snagged a wire and she was out of power again for a few days.

Good luck everyone!

Middle of the night and I can't sleep --- ugh! Worried here because we live along a river which may have an even higher storm surge than last year's storm.
I know, I know --- it's silly to worry about things you can't control but I'll tell you--- even Etienne our gargoyle is worried. For the first time ever my DH moved him up the yard and away from the river. He's sitting in the upper garden now with his back turned towards the river like he's running for the hills!

Do animals know when Mother Nature has something up her sleeve? Don't know but today the river's resident lonely swan walked up the yard between our house and the neighbor's. Then he proceeded to eat our neighbor's lawn not five feet from the road. Took pics of him through the hedge. He pretty much ignored me until I came too close and hisses started.

The hedges are over four feet tall --- gives you an idea of his size. When he started in with the dirty looks, I began my retreat.

Molie

Molie, I can understand why you are worried, living so close to the river and having had experience last year. You're in CT too which is closer to the path than I am here North of Boston. At least, so far, we are not in the direct path. The timing of the tides is a worry still though. I'm glad to see you haven't lost your sense of humor about it. Those are cute photos of that swan, especially the last one. I feel sorry for swans this time of year. The cygnets are grown and often leave the nest in the fall and one alone doesn't seem right. I hope the storm is not as bad as they are making it out. I keep telling myself it's only a Category ONE storm. We've been hit by Category FOUR storms. Good luck tomorrow!

Defrost, I'm wondering too, if having an inch of leaves on bulbs is normal this time of year, but I have dug up bulbs and replanted them when they had some green growth on them and they were fine.

We are not done yet but getting there. The lawn is cut for the last time, the vegetable garden is put to bed and mulched with grass clippings and chopped up leaves in our raised beds. The lawn furniture is put away and the gutters cleaned out. Thanks to my DH, who put in a long day yesterday. We still have to plant two shrubs and about a dozen perennials this morning and then we'll be done for the season and ready for winter, which I hope takes it's time getting here.

Thanks to Jane, I feel more prepared for the storm. Our grill does have a burner on it and we tested it out yesterday and it works fine. We have a full canister of propane and a full back up too and found an old pot that we can use on it. We're on town water and have a water filter, so we should be fine with that. We added a lot of containers of water to the freezer, and used the most expensive piece of meat for dinner last night, just in case. (g) We have two flashlights but I really want to get one of those lanterns for better light. Does anyone have one of those solar / crank versions that they are happy with?

And after all that, the path has changed and I see that we are expecting winds to no more than 60 mph and about 1.5 inches of rain. Well, I definitely won't be disappointed if we don't get a direct hit, but after all that, just an inch and a half of rain? lol

Good luck to everyone!

That last picture, Molie, is frame-worthy. Fantastic. What an incredible neck in the 2nd picture. You're fortunate to have them nearby and, yes, they certainly know when a storm is coming. Hope your river doesn't rise too much and that all stays well. The gargoyle is sure to help. Best of luck to you.
Jane

They talk about rats deserting a sinking ship, but when swans desert the river you know a bad storm's coming! Beautiful pics of a handsome swan.

My NOAA Weather Alert radio has come on twice today already, the first time at about 4:30AM with a High Wind Warning for Monday morning; it's going to be a noisy few days inside as well as out - although the Weather Alerts usually slow down once the weather is here - I guess they figure you've noticed by then.

I just have to finish securing the deck contents and I'm done with the outdoor storm preparations (except for the things I forgot and will find when I go out later).

Still need to brew the extra pot of coffee for the refrigerator (cold coffee is much better than no coffee) and I'll do a load of laundry today so I'll at least have clean clothes for a while if the power goes out.

I have flashlights, miner's headlamp, various lanterns, batteries, cell phone car charger (to charge the phone, not the car), hand crank radio, water jugs, lots of food, Halloween candy and a pumpkin to carve (when I can't go online).

I hate waiting for bad things to happen.

Claire

Oh, good idea, about the cold coffee, Claire. Our daughter enjoys iced coffee as much as hot and will pass that tip along to her. And you've reminded me I have a headlamp somewhere. We don't have a cell phone charger this time around, but DH's phone charge lasts for a week. I wonder will it help to have a land line at all?

Laundry day is Saturday anyway, so that's all set. We made a library run for books to read, which I guess I could use the headlamp for. And we plan on making an apple crisp today which would go great with melting vanilla frozen yogurt. And this year, with a burner on the grill we could make hot cocoa which is such a comfort food.

Birdfeeders will be filled today, after a stop for Safflower seed for our large capacity feeder. We've been forced to fill it with sunflower seed and a family of four squirrels is cleaning it out in about 24 hours. They usually ignore the Safflower.

We only have one old sleeping bag and I'm considering getting two news ones that are rated to the lower temperatures. And a couple of solar lanterns, a headlamp for each person and that ought to be all we need in the future. Oh and the cell phone charger for the car.

You are so close to the water Claire, but aren't you above a high cliff there? I would think that would be some protection from storm surges, no?

I thought I was pretty much ready last night - came home from work and spent the last hour and a half of daylight finishing up cleaning up the yard - but now I'm having second thoughts. I'm looking out at my pot ghetto and wondering if I should move more.

Last year during Irene, it went like this: Okay, I moved in all the small things that could blow away. Hmm, these winds are a bit worse than I expected. Let me go out in the rain and move more. Okay, that should do it. A few hours later, I'm thinking wow, it's even worse out there than this morning. Maybe I should bring in those BIG pots too. Let me go out in the torrential downpour and hope I don't get hit by a falling tree to move them.

So, this time around, I'm trying to be more proactive. On one hand, I keep hearing this will be worse than Irene. On the other hand, the forecasted winds don't look to be nearly as bad, so by "worse than Irene" I think they may mean in terms of tides, flooding, surges, etc. But I don't want to wait till the middle of the storm to find out!

My problem is that I just have nowhere to put this stuff. Garage is chock full. I keep reminding myself that while I started out last year by neatly stacking the pots in the garage, I ended up (in the torrential rain) by literally opening the garage doors and tossing stuff in there, lol. So maybe I'll just do that to begin with, and sort it out later!

My patio furniture (cheap and lightweight as it is) is weighed down with big rocks, so hopefully that will hold.

As long as one of ancient, half-dead, very tall oaks doesn't fall on the house in the middle of the storm I'll be happy. I can deal with power outages; it's property damage I don't want to deal with, especially mid-storm where you can't really do anything about it while it's still windy and pouring.

What disappoints me the most today is that despite being somewhat chilly, it's a perfect day to rake and shred leaves! They are dry and crispy, and I really enjoyed kicking through them as I went to get the paper. By tonight they will be soggy and wet (I know I won't be so lucky as to have the storm blow them into the neighbor's yar- er, clean them up for me!). But since I haven't gotten the garden fully ready for winter yet, I was wading through the leaves this morning thinking about all this potential mulch getting drenched. Oh, it will dry out eventually and be shreddable again, but there's another week's delay in getting the garden ready for winter!

Dee

It's been fascinating listening to you Yankees "batten down the hatches" -
echoes of my childhood! - and, like you, this Yankee-in-Exile has been quietly
making preparations for worst-case scenarios. But here in suburban NJ, I am
definitely the lone wolf. . .all the locals RESPOND to that 24/7 hype from the
media, but short of stampeding the supermarkets to buy PERISHABLE food,
most of the lawn furniture, campaign signs, etc. is still out there. . .it looked
like I was the only one on the block who even bothered to clean his gutters!
Oh, well. . .

If you check your latest storm predictions this morning, it looks like Sandy's
odd pathway may spare some of you. . .unfortunately, the storm is expected
to make landfall on the Jersey Shore, just 20 miles from my house, and pass
directly overhead, Weathering a storm is part of my Yankee DNA, but it will
be so sad to see the damage to my gardens, which I have spent an entire
year rebuilding after last years string of storms.
Oh, well. . .

Be safe. . .and try to creatively enjoy some "down time" !

Carl

Yes, Carl, I was thinking of you when I heard that the storm is expected to hit NJ. But I didn't realize just how close to you! Stay safe and let us know how you fare afterwards... if you have power!

Dee

Carl, I'd forgotten you were in NJ. It's interesting that you are not seeing as much preparation in your area, as you would expect. I was thinking that it is fairly unusual for NJ to be in the actual path of a Hurricane, is that right? I guess they don't have the frequent experiences we have in NE.

If we don't get heavy snow like last year, maybe the gardens will be okay. I keep thinking the category 1 storm is not going to be that bad, except for flooding due to the tides? I haven't heard anything about snow coming.

I still have a few shrubs that have not recovered from last year's October storm damage. I trimmed them after the storm, but they filled in looking pretty ugly so I'm planning to cut them back to the ground before next spring. I was hoping to avoid that. It really does take a toll when you have permanent full grown shrubs and trees that take a major hit. Hope that's not the case this year.

Or with your large oak, too, Dee.

LOL, Digger - I'm also eying the leaves and thinking maybe I can get them mowed up before the rain hits.

We must have NJ DNA, because we really haven't done any prep for this storm. We have a gas stove and town water, so I can always make coffee, the only really critical item IMHO. And if the power goes out I'll take all the CSA meat out of the freezer and make stew.

I think I'll go scout for the loose tools that so often get left in the garden beds ... there are probably a lot of them. Oh, yes, I'll turn over the bird baths too. The patio pots are awfully big to be moved - maybe I'll put them in the shelter of the outdoor shower.

It will be sad if this really hits us - the tender salvias are really in full swing now, and there are a few flowers left on the Franlinias - hate to see them blown away.

Stay safe, all!
DtD

Prepare for the worst and hope for the best! That's about all we can do. The rest is up to a higher power. Good luck to everyone!

{{gwi:5901}}

On the brighter side, inasmuch as Halloween will be a bust again, I'm eating the peanut butter cups now. :)

Dipping into the Hershey bars here .... it's Claire's fault .....we didn't have Halloween candy yet until she reminded me....lol.

We just got home from a weeks vacation. I did a half baked job of stuffing the garage with lawn furniture and pots. We decided not to mow/rake the yard - decided I didn't want the mulch to blow off the garden beds into the yard. Besides it has been sprinkling here all day.

DH did pull out the electric pole/chain saw and took down 2 maple branches that could easily fall on our cars. I was planning on having my tree guy take care of it when he comes to remove my silver maple for the solar panels. But we didn't want to risk damage to the cars.

Our refrigerator is empty - since we're just back from vacation. And I refuse to grocery shop. We have plenty of stuff in the pantry.

PM2: Land lines are good if you have a corded phone. I forgot to mention that in my list. If the power is out you can often still get a phone line if you're connected directly to the jack, not through a cordless system (which is powered by electricity). I have a cheap corded phone I plug in for power outages.

It's true I'm on top of a coastal bank (about 45 feet high) and don't have to worry about a storm surge flooding my basement. However, if you think about the coastal bank being a very tall dirt foundation under my house, you don't water lapping at the base of the foundation. The bank is well vegetated but it's sandy soil without stone armor and it can erode very easily.

I'm shocked! shocked! that anyone would dig into the Halloween candy so early! It's a sacred covenant with the neighborhood kids! Of course, if you think of yourself as a kid at heart....

Good luck, Carl, down there in the southernmost suburb of New England.

Claire

Thinking about it, I may no longer be able to use the corded phone. I now have Verizon FiOS for phone and internet, and I just got an email from Verizon saying:

"In the event of extreme weather conditions associated with Hurricane Sandy, impacted areas could experience power outages which may affect your Verizon services.

If you have fiber-based voice service or FiOS Digital Voice, the Battery Backup Unit (BBU) installed with your service supplies up to eight (8) hours of phone service. Please note that your FiOS TV and/or Internet service will not be available until your power is restored."

I'm not sure if that just applies to the answering/message service or to the phone service as a whole. Does any one here know?

Claire

Aw, come on, Claire, you can't yell at us for eating the Halloween candy. It's very likely that the poor kids won't be able to trick or treat for the second year in a row, and being the frugal New Englanders that we are, we just can't let all that candy go to waste, now can we? That would be downright un-yankee of us!

;)
Dee

We have cable telephone and 37 year old land line phones along with the fancy digital portables that promptly go dead in a power outage. Was curious, so I Googled and found the below link. Keep the cell charged.

Here is a link that might be useful: consumerreports.org

I spent a few hours yesterday and an hour today, sweeping, picking up, cleaning the gutters, and clearing all the leaves back away from the house and deck etc. I obsess over how the water drains away from the house.

The latest map at weather.com looks like landfall will be in NJ. Best of luck to everyone where she hits hardest. Here in interior Mass. it doesn't seem like Sandy will be any worse than tropical storm Irene was last year, which would be good.

The trees fared ok in Irene but got clobbered in the freak snowstorm a year ago when there were a lot of limbs down, esp. from the Silver maples and the Chinese elms. I expect they'll be okay with this storm.

Thanks, Jane, that's what I was afraid of. I haven't had FiOS long enough to have to deal with a power outage, so I just assumed the good old corded phone would still work as it used to with the old copper lines.

Cell phone will be kept charged.

Claire

some of our neighbors just received evacuation orders from the town. We haven't gotten the phone call yet. Scary and sad. :(

Molie, are you along the coast? I've read that Stamford, Fairfield, Bridgeport, Branford, East Haven, Stonington, and some others had mandatory evacuation, with some other coastal towns having a voluntary one. I always thought you were farther north.

That is scary.

Dee

Molie, so sorry to hear you may have to evacuate. That is really scary. I didn't realize you were in a coastal community, I thought you were on a river inland. This is one of those times when I hope all the hype turns out to be over reaction.

We don't have Verizon, we have cable. I just called them and asked about phone service during a power outage. We do have a corded phone. They said that it depends on whether or not a power outage effects their company and their servers so they can't send out a signal to us. I asked them about the 'battery back up' they had told us about when we signed up with them. She said that there is a battery back up in the modem that brings cable into the house. If our power goes out and our phone goes dead, we can unplug the corded phone and plug it into the back of the modem in a port labeled 'Telport 1/2 or Tel 1/2' and we will get phone service for 4-8hrs longer before the battery runs down.

Thought I would pass that along....

Whew! Evacuation avoided! Turns out our neighbors were called erroneously --- that the call was only for those living right on the shoreline. AFTER I had eaten half a pint of Ben & Jerry's out of nervousness and was making a list of all the things we'd need to do before tomorrow, this same neighbor appeared at our back door --- cup of coffee in hand --- to apologize for upsetting everyone with his mistake. I told him, " Thanks! I was so upset about the evacuation that I ate the rest of the Ben & Jerry's. And I'm lactose intolerant!"

Dee, we're a mile from the Sound--- as the crow flies. The river we live on is a tidal river and has many S-curves as it meanders down to the Sound. Normally this river is a beautiful thing but may be showing her darker side with this storm.

PM2, I'm also hoping that all the hype turns out to be an over reaction. This anticipation has been exhausting (note the chocolate urges that seem to have hit many of us). From all the news reports, it appears the main threat will be the storm surge and high winds, rather than the rainfall amounts.

It sounds like most of us are prepared for "whatever" and kind of expect to lose power for some of the time. Let me echo Bill and DtD --- good luck everyone and stay safe!

Molie

I ran into my office this morning, to secure the computers that aren't needed for real time buoy monitoring, and I tried to take the shore route in. It was under water - had to do a U turn just before the waves along Surf Drive, just where one of the many estuaries runs under the road. Other folks kept on driving - I guess they were braver than me.

The flooding is supposed to be a little worse here than it was during hurricane Bob, when Vineyard Sound came about half way up the road towards our house.

PM2, thanks for the tip about the cable modem - hope we don't need to try that but it's good to know, just in case.

Here's hoping everyone stays safe and dry for the next few days.

The coffee is out of the freezer. The cats are trying to find a door that doesn't have cat-hating winds outside. No school today, and I just received a phone call from the town with information about emergency shelters, and who to call about downed trees. It is times like this we are very glad that our house is one of the older, therefore higher, ones in the development.

The plants that come inside the house for the winter are in. The roses that go in the garage for the winter are not. There isn't room for them without a major reshuffling. Since they are practically leafless, and the smallest are two gallons, I don't expect bad things to happen.

DD has a science assignment where they are supposed to determine latitude by finding the altitude of Polaris. We haven't seen stars in about a week, and I'm not expecting them to show up any time soon.

38% of our town is currently without power. That is about 2,000 homes. Fortuneately we are not one of them.

The winds are howling. And blowing lots of my leaves into my western neighbors yard! That is counteracted by my easterly neighbors leaves being blown into my yard.

School is canceled today. Waiting to here if the ice rink closes since DD has a skating lesson scheduled tonight.

The winds are starting to pick up, and it's getting impressive. I can't imagine what it's like to live near the brunt. Amazing to think that a hurricane making landfall in New Jersey is creating such strong winds up here.

The power has been fine here, but a commercial property I manage on the other side of town has already had 2 power outages. Every time the power fluctuates the alarm system sends trouble signals. They are always false alarms (but you never know), but the fire department is called to respond, and runs around responding to false alarms all over town because other alarm systems are doing the same thing. The alarm company suggested I put the system on "Test", and they would then have permission to ignore future signals. But what if there is a REAL fire?

At a certain point, if the power is out long enough, and a disaster is bad enough, the backup systems fail, and even the emergency departments don't/can't respond to all calls.

Holy Toledo! The brunt of this storm is still over a hundred miles out to
sea, but tree limbs are crashing down all around me! My neighbors
Acer negundo (the dreadful and messy Box Elder) just dropped a huge branch onto my side of the fence - my Betula niger quickly responded by
bombing his barbeque with a hefty limb. . .it�s like the War-of-the-Worlds
out there, and they tell me I�ve got another 24 hours to go!

Already spent a few hours down at the church this morning (we�re I�ve
been responsible for Community Outreach suppers for the past 18 years),
setting things up so we�ll be able to start serving hot soup to one and all
(especially the emergency workers) as soon as this monster storm abates tomorrow afternoon. . .fortunately, the church has gas stoves, and since it�s
a given that we�ll be losing power for days, this provides a service as well as using up all the food in our two huge freezers, which would otherwise be
lost.

Yesterday, I forlornly cut all the remaining flowers in the garden (and there
were a lot !) and distributed them to everyone I could think of. . .saved my
favorite bouquet (and a new combo in the garden this year) for myself -
tall spires of Anemone �Honerine Jobert� mixed with long stems of Aconitum
carmichaelii Arendsii. . .so magnificent, and to think that they only come into their own as late as October!

Probably my last post before the computer goes down. . .stay safe, y�all!

Carl

Hey Carl, I've been thinking of you all day and hoping you are okay. Hope things continue to be as okay as possible.

So far so good here in my little patch of northeastern Fairfield County. The rain in general has been lighter than I expected, and the winds, while kinda scary, don't seem as bad as when Irene visited. I don't know if that's because the tossing of the branches looked more fearsome when said branches were full of green leaves, as opposed to being bare now, but that is a bit reassuring to me.

Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty scary - I just held my breath typing that last sentence as a huge gust went over the house - I was expecting to see a house go flying by a la Oz, lol - but I haven't been hiding in the basement family room like I was during Irene.

I'm also hearing that many people in the area are without power but - knock on wood - so far so good for me. I haven't watched any news reports yet today - they all act like the end of the world is coming and I don't need any help in worrying! - but I am going to go watch now and see how the Housatonic River is doing here in my neck of the woods. They "suggested" people living there move, but I don't know if anyone took that advice and how they are faring.

Well, they say we are coming up on supposedly the worst of it now, itfor the next few hours, (and from the sounds outside I think they are right!) so maybe I will go hunker down in the basement and lay on the couch and read a book and ignore the wind and the stuff (leaves, sticks, etc.) hitting the house.

I hope everyone is safe and dry!
Dee

We've been fine here all day, watching the wind whipping the trees around out the window. Went for a walk around the neighborhood early this morning before it was too bad and it wasn't raining yet. Since then we made a short trip in the car to the corner store and see stop signs and a street sign flattened. We haven't lost power. When we got back, we got a call from our adult son who had a neighbor's tree come down across the backyard of the house he has a rental apartment in. Just missed the main part of the house and took out a corner of a screen porch and the tree is now resting up against the house. I'm so thankful, no one is hurt and his apartment is intact!!

Yes the coverage is very annoying Dee! They produce it like it is a 'movie of the week'. Of course, it is 'the worst' storm ever. What is that about the 5th worst storm of the last 10 years? (g)

Carl your bouquets sound wonderful! And lucky rescue workers, getting home made soup!

I would think things should be winding down now that the eye of the storm has reached land, it should be weakening soon.

Still roaring here north of Boston tho the rain has not been too bad. We got the gutters cleaned during the Patriots game yesterday.

We always lose power and have had several big ones in recent years--the ice storm of December 08 (the coldest I've ever been) and last year's Halloween snowstorm. But this year, tho a lot of my town is out, I still have power. Amazing. I guess everything that could come down--trees, branches--has already come down or we've cut them down preemptively. Fingers crossed and not tempting fate...hope she's paying attention.

Strong winds off the bay and lots of wave action. The mid-day high tide was higher than usual, but not outrageous. The midnight high tide could cause serious erosion here and farther down the beach at the harbor, but I won't be able to see that until morning.

There have been a few blips in the power but it came back on in a few seconds and I still have power now. I shut down the modem and computer on general principles when the power was fluctuating, and I used that time to carve my pumpkin. Took the pumpkin guts out to the compost pile and noticed lots of pine needles down. As soon as it eases up I'll rake them onto the garden beds for winter protection.

I hope the forum members in the more southerly regions are OK (Carl sounds like he's having a rough time).

Claire

Anyone here who still has power? Amazingly, I do, although I don't have any phone service, which is odd since I have internet access (from the same company...???).

Things here are calm, although I'm a bit frustrated news-wise. My satellite tv provider thinks that NYC stations are my local stations, and while in general I have always watched NYC stations, it is nice in these situations to know what's going on in my area. I can tell you what's going on in Hoboken and Battery Park and Long Beach, but I have no idea what's going on in my own downtown! I don't even know if my workplace is open today, and if others don't have power and I don't have phone, I may never know, lol!

I hope everyone is safe, and hoping any property damage was kept to a minimum. Please check in when you can so we all know we are all safe!

Dee

We never lost power, which has to be a minor miracle. Looking a the local outage map, we were given only a glancing blow. The national cable channels are frozen for some reason, but the local NYC channels are working, and the cable modem is obviously working.

I still have power too although some homes in Plymouth are out. The sun was out for a while this morning but I'm just now seeing a few sprinkles on the deck. It's warm enough to eat on the deck - all that southern warm air that was dragged up here!

The Wicked Local Plymouth website has very little storm news - they do say:

"PLYMOUTH

NStar was reporting 4,793 Plymouth customers were without electricity Monday evening, out of 138,694 total Massachusetts customer outages." That's a minority of Plymouth households.

Otherwise I've been reading Cape Cod Times online, Boston.com, and NY Times online for "local" news.

Claire

Hi all! My DH hooked my computer up to our generator so I'm checking out everyone on the forum. Glad to hear that so many of you still have power and can get around!

Carl??? NJ was hit so hard --- the coverage of damage in your state is just awful. How close are you to the coast? And those poor people in Far Rockaway (I think) where 100 homes burned to the ground because the flooding was so bad fireman could not get equipment there. Those photos of houses on fire and flooded were heart-breaking.

We can't complain about "no power". Throwing out food and missing TV is nothing compared to loss of life or to losing your home. It's good to see friends and neighbors, even strangers, coming together to help each other. The morning after, I went out on the deck to check out the river. There on our neighbor's bank were geese and our river swan, sleeping together. The pictures are grainy because of the darkness and the camera's auto-focus, but still I love them.

When times are tough, everyone needs a friend!

Stay safe everyone!
Molie

Very nice bucolic scene, Molie. You can imagine them thinking "Boy, did I have a bad dream last night - glad that's over and the neighbors are OK!"

Still no word from Carl.

Claire

Glad to see the tidal river didn't rise to meet you, Molie. Thought about you when the Governor talked about the destruction in Milford. We were without power for 37 hours; it came back at 9:15 this morning. Much better than the last Oct. storm when we were out 8 days, and Irene was 7 days. Happy that all the trees were tended to after the last Halloween storm so when the gusts hit 70-80mph here on Monday,(I live on top of a hill)we suffered no big damage this time. The pruning saw and I will go steady again, but nothing larger than a 2" diameter fell. Also happy to own 1.5 gal. flush toilets! Boy, those old 3.5 gal. tanks were tough to fill for mechanical flushing. Hoping for the best for Carl and our shoreline friends.
Kindly,
Jane

We had a micro-burst in downtown Falmouth last night, at around 7:30, just before the big thunderstorm (did you all have t-storms?) The wind was so strong, it literally looked fake.

In my little corner of town, there was actually more damage last night than from Sandy - two big branches from the one decent shade tree on the property came down in my yard, and another landed on a neighbor's skylight. Actually, it's not my tree, but I do feel sorry for the neighbors.

I suspect we won't hear from Carl for a few days - NJ really did get clobbered. My sister's electricity and phone are still out. I'm not sure how far she is from Carl, but it's a small state.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cape Cod Times - micro burst

DtD: The thunderstorm went through here last night, but wasn't bad. The NOAA Weather Alert radio was going crazy reporting the progress of the storm - I got alerts starting from the Cape and moving through the South Coast, the East Coast, the South Shore and approaching Boston, at which point I was out of warning range. I think they gave marine/nautical warnings as well. A lot of noise with the beeping and alarm, but I'd rather have too much warning than not enough.

I checked the weather map online and it looked awful, but the worst parts avoided us.

Has anyone heard from runktrun on Martha's Vineyard?

Claire

There's Molie and Ms. Swan! So glad you're not floating down the river, Molie. And your photos of the swan have me considering how amazing it actually is, that birds and animals manage to figure out how to get through such awful weather. You would think they are so lightweight and small that they would just get tossed up into the sky, but they know just what to do.

Bill, I did remember you were in RI, I just thought aside from Carl, you might be the southernmost member of the forum. Glad you got through it in good shape!

Another 37 hr power outage, Jane?! Well, I guess it was an improvement from last year. Glad you are back in business. I think we did fairly well in our neighborhood too, in part because last year, we lost so many branches and after the power outage last October, NStar was here for a week trimming any tree branches that were near the wires.

I thought the whole neighborhood did very well, then this afternoon, I had a service man here for an appliance and as he came in, he was saying ...'wow, I see your neighbor has a tree on their car.' I was shocked, because I had not seen it. They live on the corner of a street that is only a block away, but we never drive that way. (g) I had to go out and look and sure enough, there was a Spruce laying right across their car in the driveway. I imagine they are waiting for an insurance adjuster to get there.

We didn't get the microburst in our area, but wow, the rain came down in a sheet of water for about half an hour about 10:30pm last night. More rain than we had in the previous two days. Thunder and lightning too. And today the sun was in and out. It was so great to see sunshine!

Glad everyone is okay. Fingers crossed for Carl.