Sandy's Aftermath (Part II)

In my last post, I wrote about Hurricane Sandy, and how the various inhabitants here on the mountaintop weathered the storm.

We had made it through the night as Sandy come through New Jersey. We lost  power at about 7:30 pm, but our generator kicked in and we were able to keep some lights on, and the house stayed warm.

The next morning, the winds were still going, but had settled in to a lighter roar. My neighborhood was truly a mess. Trees were down everywhere, taking power lines and transformers with them, and creating tangled webs of dangerous wires. Some trees landed on houses and some crashed down with their branches just brushing the siding or barely missing cars.

We were very lucky. Our home was barely touched. Here, Jasper and Tucker inspect some of the damage to my potted plants. Did I say we were lucky? Yes, I did.

After the storm. Jasper sits under the relatively safety of the tree. There he's safe from wet grass that might moisten his toes.

I took a walk through the woods behind our home. It was amazing to see the number--and the size--of the trees that had been blown down. I would guess that within a five minute walk diameter of my home, there had to have been at least 50 trees toppled by Mother Nature. And I'm not talking about your 6-inch trunks. Think more like decades-old trees one- to two-feet wide. Dozens of feet tall--the kind that tower over homes in this heavily forested neighborhood.

Sometimes trees were simply broken, like this small one. It's hard to imagine the power that snapped this 8-inch trunk like it was a toothpick.

 

Some trees that were knocked down by the power of the winds were huge, like this one.

The park behind our house had paths with markers on the trees. Here, the blue trail (notice the blue marker on one of the fallen trunks) is blocked by fallen trees.

Looking at the uprooted trees, you could almost hear the groans they must have made as they were falling.

One look and you knew it was going to be a Very Long Time before people had power again.

Neighbors on either side of me had trees down--one blocked a driveway. The neighbor on our right side, Anne, was okay, so together we went and checked on our elderly neighbors across the street. Luck or something must have smiled on them because four huge trees had come down in their yard, just missing their home and their cars.

Our next-door neighbor; a large pine tree fell across their driveway.

As this tree blew over, in another neighbor's yard, it took with it metal stripping that had lined their paved driveway.

Our neighbors across the street were actually lucky. None of trees that came down in their yard hit their house or their cars.

Some pieces from our roof wound up in our yard, as did shingles from my neighbor's roof. Here is one of the pieces wrapped around a tree.

Brian and I offered up our home to anyone who needed a place to stay or to get warm or to power up their electronic devices. We shared stories of what we heard on the radio, since we had no TV, no internet, no landline phones.

If we thought the devastation was real and scary in our little neck of the woods, it was even worse and more horrific elsewhere. Areas of New York were flooded--not just the beachy areas, but Queens, the Rockaways, lower Manhattan. Manhattan under water? This is the stuff of disaster movies, not reality. The Jersey shore of my youth--where I took my kids to play in the sand and stroll the boardwalks and play on the amusement park rides--has been devastated. In some places demolished.

One picture that I saw that stays in my mind shows the roller coaster from the Seaside boardwalk--in the ocean. The pier where the roller coaster was is no more. It's gone.

People lost their homes, their lives. The flooding from the high tide and the driving wind was unprecedented. And even though the forecasters said it was going to be bad, I don't think they could  have predicted the enormity of it.

Fast forward to two weeks later. Though believe me, the time did not go by fast. It took us days before we could travel off the mountain. There was only one road open for most of the first week. Streets were blocked not just by trees, but by downed wires. Two weeks later and some of my friends and family still did not have power.

It's a labor-intensive process to put the power back on; every tree has to be taken apart carefully, with the PSE&G (Public Service Electric & Gas, our power company) supervising and approving to make sure no wires are live. And once the trees are cleaned up, they need to make sure everything is connected before they turn the grid section back on. Assuming the substations haven't been flooded or transformers blown, which was the case in many areas of our town and our state.

The street we live on looked like this every few hundred yards. It took many days before the roads were all cleared in our neighborhood.

Sometimes they have to turn power off for one area in order to restore power to others. Our electricity has gone down four times since the storm. (Admittedly, that includes power lost due to the snowy nor'easter named Athena that hit our area a little over a week after Sandy. But that's a story for another post.)

At one point, we lost power again, and our generator didn't kick in like it was supposed to. When Brian got it to function, it started making weird noises. Afraid that something would explode, we shut it off for the night until we could find out if it was safe. By morning, I was wearing a hat and coat and scarf and blanket--and was very happy that Tucker and Jasper wanted to snuggle with me.

The whole situation is more than one state can handle. 2.8 million customers lost power in this storm. I've heard it reported that trucks from 36 states across the U.S. have been driven or flown to New Jersey.

The church parking lot about a mile from us became a staging area for out-of-state utility workers. These folks were from Missouri.

A common sight. Notice the transformers on the ground. Thousands of transformers were lost from Sandy.

I grew up in a Philadelphia suburb where Asplundh was a familiar tree service company. Their distinctive orange trucks were easily identifiable. It was a little weird seeing them here in New Jersey.

JCP&L (the other power company in the state) reported several days ago that they had removed 45,000 trees just to get to power lines. Now, I'm no statistician, but JCP&L served about 2/3 of the customers that were affected. If that many trees had to be cut up and removed by just them--and they weren't even halfway through the fix-up--and at most maybe 1 in 10 trees knocked down took out wires, I think I could safely say that NJ lost a million trees in the storm. At least. Ouch.

Repeat this scene over and over again and you can begin to have a picture of what it was like across New Jersey.

With power gone, and thousands of people using gas generators, and gas stations with no electricity and the entire gas supply chain knocked out in myriad ways--from shipping to refineries to distribution and beyond--the next issue was getting gas. Within days, there were mile-long lines at gas stations, as people tried to power their generators and go places where they can plug in and be warm. Police were stationed in any open gas station to prevent altercations; it wasn't long before our governor began a gas rationing system. Even with that, it was several days before the supply loosened up and we didn't have to make decisions on whether to "spend" our precious gas to get anywhere--to work, to the store (if it was even open), to a diner to eat a warm meal.

Long lines at the gas stations--lines for cars trying to fill up, and lines for people with their ubiquitous red gas cans trying to get fuel for their generators.

Since we had power, and our office didn't, I was able to work from home. A co-worker joined me, and the dogs and cats made sure we focused--on working and giving them snuggles and pets. In this picture, if you look carefully, you can see Elsa on a chair in the rear, Calvin on a chair in the front, and Jasper hanging out under the table.

This whole experience of being part of a major disaster--and being one of the extremely lucky ones who didn't get hurt or lose a home to falling trees, fires or flood (thank you generator)--has made me realize that I didn't have a clue about other disasters. I think about Katrina. Haiti. The tsunami that hit Japan. The media cover those events for a while and then other news took over. And maybe you hear or read a story one month or one year later. For the people in those areas, recovery isn't measured in weeks, but in years.

And, as they say, the devil is in the details, and there are so many things you don't think about.

The people in lower Manhattan who live in buildings where the basements have flooded, and therefore there is no power. No power means no elevators. This is a problem if you live on the 27th floor. And maybe you're told your building won't be livable for the next 3 weeks or 3 months. Because they can't get the contractors or the parts to fix the problem--because there are 34 other buildings in the same situation. Where do you go? Where do you stay? You can break your lease, but then you can't move your furniture down 27 floors without an elevator. And then, how do you go to work?

Which is another story, because so much of New York's transportation system shut down. Subway tunnels were flooded. Some of the main car and truck tunnels into the city were also flooded.  The same is true in New Jersey. Two weeks after the storm, and New Jersey Transit still has limited service in many areas. You simply can't get places you used to be able to. Hour-long commutes become two or three hours--each way.

And then there are folks like my neighbors who don't have city water; well water requires a pump, and without electricity, they don't have water. We helped them out by giving them buckets and jugs of water--and leaving our water hose hooked up to the front of the house so they could get water any time they needed it.

Schools were closed here for over a week. Some schools still haven't opened, and in some cases, classes have begun, but in different buildings. One school system has middle school students sharing the high school in shifts: middle school in the mornings, high school in the afternoons until 6:00.

The whole disaster has shown how important a reverse 911 or text messaging system is so critical to communication. How do you tell people what is going on and where they need to go for help if they don't have power. No power means no TV, radio or internet--unless you have a smart phone, until it runs out its battery. And with the gas shortage, where can people go?

Last Tuesday, when everyone went to the polls to vote for President (and others), here in New Jersey, we had to figure out where to go. Our voting location changed because it had no power. And the one we finally wound up at turned out to be powered by generators. I guess it's no wonder that this year's voter turnout in New Jersey may have been the lowest on record.

Lighting by generator outside the polling place on election day. My son Aaron (in the picture) voted for the first time in this election; it will be quite memorable for many, many reasons.

Last week, several New Jersey and New York musicians including Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi and Billy Joel held a telethon to benefit the victims. I texted REDCROSS to 90999 to support the cause. But I can tell you, it was the weirdest thing to see a telethon to benefit my state, my neighbors, my city and the Jersey shore of my memories.

Elsa Clair encourages everyone to donate to the Red Cross. We've seen them around town and heard wonderful things about how much they're helping.

In all of this, I was able to get to know my neighbors better, as we all pulled together to help each other, offering whatever we could to those who needed anything. We all watched out for each other. And that was a very good thing.

We'll recover.  Things won't ever be the same, but we'll recover. And we'll have made new friends and strengthened bonds along the way.

Stormy Weather: Sandy Pays an Unwelcome Visit (Part I)

I think you would probably have to be living under a rock these days to not have heard about Hurricane Sandy or Superstorm Sandy or whatever you call the monster storm that hit the east coast of the U.S. in the last week of October. It was, the weather forecasters told us ahead of time, a recipe for disaster. Take one nasty hurricane, add a nor'easter, sprinkle in a cold front and stir with a backwards jet stream. Cook slowly with a full moon to create an ultra high tide. And hunker down.

(The last time we got hit by a hurricane was Irene in 2011; feel free to read my post on the battening and hunkering we had to do back then and the post about how we weathered the storm, which was only a little over a year ago.)

We knew it was going to be bad when Jim Cantore of The Weather Channel showed up in Battery Park in the lower tip of Manhattan. He only goes where they expect the worst weather to happen. Jim Cantore and Mike Seidel. Mike showed up on the Jersey coast. When you see them in your neighborhood, you know you're in for it.

So it wasn't too surprising that Sandy hit New York and New Jersey very hard.

During the storm, which began in earnest on Monday, October 29 and lasted through the next day, we spent most of the daytime in the basement. It was the first time the kittens were down there, so for them it was mostly fun and games and exploration.

How do kittens while away the time while in the basement? By playing Foosball. Of course.

The wind kicked up as the day went on, and by evening the wind really was howling. I would take the dogs outside to do their business and I kept looking up at the sky and wondering why jets were still flying--and so low that I could really heard their engines. And then it dawned on me. The sound wasn't from airplanes; it was the wind. That loud. Really.

The dogs weren't happy. It was loud and wet. And blowy. Not fun to play in. They kept looking at me as if to say, "Turn it off already!"

Jasper and Tucker: It's raining! We're getting wet! Let us in already!

Even when the rain let up a bit, Tucker and Jasper weren't that happy with the nasty winds.

 

A wet Lilah didn't mind wind or rain.

I always thought hurricanes meant lots of rain. But this was really a wind event. We would get bands of rain with serious downpours now and again, but it was the blowing, thrashing wind that showed Mother Nature's power to us.

Pine siskins attempted to shelter from the winds by clinging to the side of our large maple tree.

Strong winds shredded leaves from the trees and plastered them against the house. Jasper didn't care; he just wanted to get inside where it's warm and dry.

In the midst of it all, Athena slept right next to the windows as the wind rattles the panes. She barely twitched a whisker.

By nighttime, the winds were getting stronger. You could hear it even within the safety of our home.  The dogs and cats and kittens, for the most part, ignored the storm. You could tell Lilah wasn't very happy as she stuck a little closer to me when the winds were bad. And every once in a while, a gust came through that made everyone perk up their ears and brace for something. But nobody was panicking or hiding...except for maybe Dawn, but she Hides all the time; it's her hobby.

At 7:30, the power went out. I would say we are lucky enough to have a generator, but we have a generator because two years ago we were very unlucky; an ill-timed storm caused us to lose power, and our battery back-up sump pumps couldn't keep up with the rain. We lost a lot of what we had stored in our basement from the resulting flood. It took us months to pick up the pieces; the silver lining was we were able to put the insurance money toward finishing the basement, and most important, installing a generator that is hooked up to our natural gas line.

That last part is real important: the generator is hooked up to our natural gas line. Which means when the power goes out, the generator automatically starts up. And keeps going. We don't have to fill it with gas. All we have to is check the oil if it runs for more than five days. Which one always hopes never happens.

We invited our neighbor over to spend the evening with us, and we spent the evening with our generator providing light and warmth--and power to the pumps. At one point, a particularly vehement gust shook the house. We halted our conversation and looked at each other, wide-eyed. When we started breathing again--not realizing at first that we had been holding our breaths--I could feel the adrenaline pounding through me. We all did. It felt like we had been brushed by something unbelievably powerful.

Later that night, we put the cats and kittens in the basement, as it was one of the safest rooms in the house--and the one most likely to stay closed and untouched if a tree landed on our roof. And my husband and I slept (make that "attempted to sleep") in my son's vacant room, along with the dogs, figuring it was furthest from the giant tree in our backyard, and hopefully less likely to be damaged.

It was a Very Long Night.

In my next post, I'll write about the aftermath of Sandy.

After Irene

It rained and raged and stormed and blew. By the next morning, though, the rain had let up a bit. And by early afternoon, all that was left of Hurricane Irene was the wind. We were unscathed for the most part: a few downed branches, puddles that were more like ponds throughout the yard, and green leaves everywhere that had been stripped from the trees. We even had electricity until about 2 pm, but then our generator kicked in and our pumps continued to pump. We had no internet or phone service for two days, until the "real" power came back on.

We were spared. Living on the first ridge of the Watchung Mountains certainly has its benefits.While our house doesn't have a million-dollar view (we live on what I like to call the backside of the mountain), all the water does flow downhill. So, while our basement floods if we aren't pumping, we do not have to worry about rivers overflowing. 

Unfortunately, so many of the towns nearby--a mere 5 minute drive from our home--were inundated. Homes were destroyed. Lives uprooted. Basements flooded to ceilings. I can just barely comprehend what those folks are going through, since we dealt with our flood a year and a half ago. My little picture story of our experiences doesn't begin to compare, so I'll share it simply. My heart goes out to the people who still have lots of recover ahead of them.

As for us, on Sunday morning, Irene was dragging her rear end through New Jersey. It was still raining, and the cats continued to enjoy the Blowing Leaves Channel on the Window TV.

Athena watching Cat TV.

The dogs needed to go out, so we braved the weather, but by that time, the rain had slowed quite a bit.

Many branches littered the yard. A dog's paradise: more sticks than even Jasper and Tucker could chew in a day...maybe even a week.

Lilah surveys the damage to my butterfly bushes. Every one was blown over.

Our driveway had become a stream.

Speaking of streams, here's a "before" picture of one of the streams in our woods.

And here's the "after." In the background, you can see how the plants on the side of the stream were flattened by the rushing water; by the time I took this picture, much of it had receded.

The next day, we went for our regular morning walk. Instead of the peace and quiet of an early stroll, with birdsong in our ears, we were treated to the cacophony of multiple generators; so many people were still without power.

As always, Lilah leads the way on our walk.

This was not an usual sight. Throughout our neighborhood, trees rested on wires; in any normal circumstances, this would have been taken care of within hours. In many cases, days went by before trees were removed. If it wasn't an immediate danger or affected power, it stayed.

A bonus: downed trees meant there were sticks to play with on the walk.

We saw lots of wildlife on our walk. The dogs were not allowed to chase that deer you see in the background. Instead, we practiced Leave It--as in, pay attention to me instead of that thing you're really interested in. But it was a deer!

As usual, Jasper checks for squirrels in his favorite Squirrel Yard. Came up empty this time, but maybe they'll show up on our next walk. One can always hope.

When cars came by, we practiced our Sits and Stays off the road.

Ahhh...home. The sun is coming up and dinner is sure to follow once we get inside.

Later that day in our backyard, we saw a hawk on our pool fence drying out wings in the sun. He's an immature bird, not fully grown, and I'm not that great at identifying immatures, but my best guess is he's a young Cooper's Hawk.

As the days have gone by, more debris has been cleaned up. Piles of soggy belongings appeared on the sides of streets in towns like Manville and Bound Brook, indicating flooded basements. The remnants of Hurricane Lee came pouring through, adding more wet insult to injury with severe storms. 

But over the past week or so, we straightened out our butterfly bushes, attaching them to our deck with the bungee cords we had used to tie down our furniture. The branches are picked up and the creek beds are back to normal level.

I think some of our local wildlife suffered. I've only seen one flying squirrel since the storm. And some nights the peanut butter I leave out goes untouched. And only a solitary gray squirrel has visited our feeders during the day; Brian saw him. I haven't seen a one.

But the butterflies are back, and we've seen the sun a few times. Things are getting back to normal on the "mountaintop." 

A monarch feasting on buddleia (butterfly bush).

Battening Down the Hatches, Hunkering Down and Dodging Bullets

Henceforth, I declare that I will never, ever use the following expressions:

• Batten down the hatches


• Hunker down


• Dodge a bullet

The arrival of Hurricane Irene on the east coast of the U.S. caused an outbreak of these expressions--dare I say an epidemic. I woulda thunk that somewhere, somehow, there would be at least one creative talking head who did NOT use one or all of those expressions when reporting on this historic storm.

At least none of my cats or dogs did. Nor will I in this post.

For the most part, they ignored Irene.

Jasper is trying to ignore the activity as we prepare for Irene's arrival. For some reason, Playing with Dogs wasn't on the list of things to do.

Preparing for the worst, with help from the dogs
The humans, though, found it hard to ignore. The rain wasn’t that dramatic, and although it was windy, we didn’t get the full brunt of Mother Nature’s intensity.  Before Irene hit, Brian and I spent most of Saturday tying down lawn furniture, stowing plant pots, and removing blowable items, to prevent them from becoming missiles during the hurricane.

Before Irene: our deck. Everything had to be stowed.

Chairs, umbrella and plants removed; glass from the tabletop stored in the shed.

Every pillow, cushion, table and plant had to be accounted for.

After everything was as ready as we could make it, Dr. Lilah inspected.

Previously, we had gone shopping, buying water and human, cat and dog food to last us for a week. We didn’t need batteries, as we always have tons; flashlights are always on hand for nighttime dog walking.

Once flooded, twice shy 
As Irene bore down upon us, we watched The Weather Channel almost obsessively. A year and a half ago, after a particularly wet spring, the power went out during a heavy thunderstorm. Despite a panicked run to Home Depot to buy a generator, and a group effort to pull things out of our basement, we wound up with 8 inches of water there. Doesn’t sound like much if it’s never happened to you, but it was enough to ruin a huge amount of our stuff—and took us nearly a year to clean up afterwards.

From last year's flood; only a small portion of the stuff we lost.

After we cleaned everything out of the basement, the remediator brought a few fans to help dry it out. This is NOT all of them.

I can only begin to imagine the fear and loss that so many people here in New Jersey and throughout the northeast felt and are feeling from the devastation that Irene wreaked. My hearts go out to them; our little flood does not compare.

With money from the insurance (plus a lot more we added), we installed better drains and improved sump pumps in the basement, and then created a finished room. Most important, we also installed a gas-powered generator that automatically turns on 3 seconds after we lose power.

The generator is the only reason I wasn’t panicked during Irene. Because I’ve had two flooded basements in my lifetime—and that is two too many.

That said, I was a bit concerned about the storm. As Irene approached the wind and rain began and intensified. The Weather Channel had our area under a tornado warning. And the gorgeous old maple tree by our patio was looking too darn close to the house.

Big tree. Near house. Very pretty, but a little scary when you consider the hurricane force winds that were expected with Irene.

Raining cats and dogs
During the afternoon, the rain and winds came in earnest. Lilah barely noticed it was raining. I’m not sure if she cared about the wind. But the two boys, Jasper and Tucker, Do Not Like Getting Wet. And, while they’ve learned to got outside and Potty when it rains, this was a little over the top. 

Each time I took the dogs out, after they did their business, Jasper would stand next to me and Tucker would try to shelter under me, sitting as close as he could to my legs. Lilah ran around splashing in puddles and sniffing Good Sniffs.  When it got too much for them, Jasper and Tucker would bolt for the door, hoping for the opposable thumbs that would enable them to get out of the rain without having to wait for me to help them.

"Hey, let us in! It's starting to rain!"

Our routine when the dogs come in from a wet outside is that they wait by the door on the bath mat we have there—just for soaking up wet dog paws. And then we play Treats for the Feets. That’s when I towel off a doggy and then he or she gets a treat for each foot that I dry. Lilah loves it, and Tucker says it’s worth it for the treat. But Jasper just hates having me Do Things to him, so he’s always last, and, while he lets me dry off each foot, it’s grudgingly, and only just barely worth the proffered treat.

During the storm, Dawn and Athena went about their normal cat duties: prowling, sleeping, pouncing and hunting bugs. 

The night of the hurricane, Athena seemed blissfully unaware.

The windows, otherwise known as Cat TV, seemed to be tuned to a different channel; normally it’s the Birdie Chipmunk Squirrel channel. For no discernable reason (to the cats), someone had changed it to the Blowing Leaves Channel. Still good viewing, though, and both Dawn and Athena were amused until it got too dark to see.

We took some of the more vulnerable plants inside and put them on the table in the dining room. The plastic tablecloth made a fantastic cat cave where it covered the chairs. The next day, there were little pinprick holes in the tablecloth. Athena must have been redecorating; I think she was going for the Night Sky look.

Blowing in the wind
When night came, we closed all the curtains to minimize flying glass should our windows break. Dawn and Athena were sent to their basement lair, where I had the crates open and ready in case we needed to transport the cats. The misses were a little perturbed because they only like going into the basement when it’s their idea—not when they’re sent there by lowly humans. But it’s comfy and there are plenty of soft and hidey cat places. Tolerable, I guess.

The dogs and Brian and I camped out in the living room all night, as it was far from the part of the house where the big maple might land.  Aaron slept in his bedroom, a bit disappointed and wishing the storm was bigger and more exciting; I think he wanted a Jim Cantore moment: standing outside in the rain and getting blown sideways. (For those of you who are not Weather Channel geeks like I am, Jim Cantore is one of their star meteorologists, and they always send him to the place they think will get the worst weather. My daughter, who lives in Manhattan, texted me before the storm arrived to say, “Jim Cantore is being sent to NYC. We’re screwed.”)

The dogs were thrilled to be in the living room, since I slept on the floor on an old comforter. Which, to a dog, is simply a very long dog bed. And it was the best kind of bed, because they could all snuggle up next to me.  Which they did. It would have been kind of fun, actually, if there wasn’t a hurricane raging outside.

Jasper on my--excuse me, his--bed where we spent the night.

So, with cats in the basement, humans and dogs camped in the living room, we passed the night, sometimes sleeping, sometimes listening to the wind and rain.

To be continued…my next post will be about the end of the storm and the aftermath.