Sandy vs the rPod

Ray, with the leave parts stuck all over the pod, you can change the name to "CamoPod"

We just got power back late last night and were really lucky that Sandy gained speed and hit land a few hours before high tide.  We had expected it to completely flood the basement and even get a few inches on the first floor of the house. The surge came right up to the bottom of our front step then retreated and dumped what looks like the entire contents of Long Island's recycling depot and their compost pile around our house.  Still cleaning up that mess :( but glad it wasn't as bad as predicted for us.

We spent until last Saturday, the 10th, without power. Had a generator for the last five days- on loan from my car mechanic who got his power back sooner. So we had heat after I wired it into the steam boiler control line, and some lights on extension cords but no TV, Internet or phone without real electric. Then it turned out the backup battery on the FIOS box fried the incoming network box so that had to be replaced. Now we are back to standard communication levels.

I spent several days with the Presbyterian Disaster Assistance advance team visiting the shore communities hit by Sandy- too much destruction.... Then I ended up recruited to be the Presbytery Recovery Coordinator for our area of NJ north of Atlantic City. It will be a long term process to get the life of these towns and communities back to a sense of "normal", whatever that may end up being.

I hope all our neighbors fared well and are back to their regular lifestyles without lingering after effects.

Walt

We lucked out up he in upstate New York, lost power for about a day. My sister has a house on LBI (barrier island off of NJ). Lots of destruction there, but her town, Baregat Light, protects their primary dunes and therefore, the town suffered very little damage. We need to learn to respect Mother Nature!

Paging Walt, haven't heard from you in a while...