post Hurricane Sandy - we're fine! « Neil vN

Tangents

post Hurricane Sandy – we’re fine!

October 30, 2012

I’ve had a bunch of people email to ask me if we are fine after Hurricane Sandy swept through the Eastern part of the USA on Monday, so it might be a good idea to post it here as well.

We’re fine! Where we live in north New Jersey, the storm passed South of us and then to the West of us during Monday. So we didn’t feel the brunt of it.

In comparison to the heart-breaking stories and the damage we’ve seen elsewhere in news stories, we had no damage at all. We had put away all patio furniture and such. So the only damage that we had was part of our wooden fence in the back, fell over.

We got really lucky though. Some neighbors had minor damage to their houses. I’m sure there’s a lot of damage in all of New Jersey with trees blowing over.

So the worst of it is that we are without power today (Tuesday). Late last night we heard a power transformer (?) down the street go bang! and then you could hear it arcing through the night. So now we are without power and probably will be for several days while they deal with much bigger problems elsewhere.

My daughter, Janine, was staying in the dorm at university. The engineering campus of NYU is in Brooklyn and not too far from the areas that were completely flooded when the sea pushed the Hudson River over its banks. But she’s safe. (The university authorities didn’t allow any students outside at all.)

And that’s about it. :)

As soon as we have power again, it’ll be back to usual business here.

The photo above was taken on Sunday night in Manhattan as the clouds ominously loomed, pre-Hurricane Sandy.

Neil vN

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19 Comments »

This is heartening news, Neil. We have been watching the devastation on CNN at home in British Columbia, Canada. Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone there.

Comment by peter — October 30, 2012 @ 12:25 pm
Glad to hear that you and yours are safe Neil, our thoughts are with others not so fortunate.

Comment by Ian — October 30, 2012 @ 2:33 pm
Glad to hear, your safe and sound Neil.

Comment by Ciaran Fallon — October 30, 2012 @ 3:21 pm
Glad to hear you’re safe Neil. Can’t believe how lucky Cheryl and I were to miss all this!

Comment by Colin Tuff — October 30, 2012 @ 5:04 pm
Glad to hear this news Neil. Hope the recovery effort goes smoothly.

Comment by Larry Holloway — October 30, 2012 @ 5:06 pm
I was thinking of you several times and wondering how you were faring. Glad to here you are all OK and hope the power gets restored soon.

Comment by Gene — October 30, 2012 @ 5:11 pm
I had the same thoughts Neil – wondering how you had been affected, I’m so pleased that you weren’t. Hope all is returned to normality soon. Take care, Jeff.

Comment by Jeff Woodall — October 30, 2012 @ 6:15 pm
What I thought was a transformer arcing, turned out to be power cables that had touched the ground … and the electricity arced and chewed up the tar road. This is about a block from my house.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — October 31, 2012 @ 12:06 am
Comment by Neil vN — October 31, 2012 @ 12:06 am
That certainly put a dent into the asphalt.

Any ETA on power? Presume that could take days.

Comment by Trev — October 31, 2012 @ 12:36 am
Trev, no idea on when we’ll have power again. With a reported 93,500 houses in NJ who are supplied by PSE&G, without power, there will be a massive backlog. On top of that, with the news reports of hospitals being evacuated, we’re pretty low on the list for power to our homes.

btw .. the LED video lights have come to be very useful for providing light at night-time. I place them around the living room on top of shelves, and point them up at the ceiling.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — October 31, 2012 @ 1:05 am
Thanks for taking the time out to report on this, appreciated.

Certainly massive devastation not to mention the tragedy of all the lives lost.

Great little idea on LED lighting, must remember that next time I have black-out with my Video lights.

Comment by Trev — October 31, 2012 @ 2:17 am
So bly julle is veilig, dankie vir die terugvoer.
Ons nuus sê nou pas New Jersey is die ergste getref, toe kom kyk ek eers. Gelukkig hou jou batterye nog vir nodige kommunikasie.

Comment by Trisa Hugo — October 31, 2012 @ 4:32 am
Neil I specially went to your site to see if you had posted an update, glad all ok but much sympathy from New Zealand to the USA, its devastating and hard to watch on the TV. Thanks for the update, fingers crossed the infrastructure gets up and running as soon as humanly possible.

On another note, I did a small wedding for the first time in ages and consciously tried to put all your excellent advice into practice. You are so generous with sharing your knowledge, expertise and personal experience with us all, and Im sure I speak for the lot of us out here, we salute you and your work. Many thanks.

Kia kaha (stay strong), Vasbyt and Hamba Kashle
Wendy

Comment by Wendy Cain — November 1, 2012 @ 10:37 pm
This is the 4th day without power. PSE&G people have said it could take as long as until Nov 9th to get power to all the areas where I live.

On top of that, the data on my laptop’s hard drive got corrupted yesterday morning. (I suspect it is a knock-on effect of the faulty battery on my laptop.) So now I am busy getting everything up to speed again on my computer.

And am I glad I’ve been listening to myself:
– photography workflow – back-up plans
– photography workflow – back-up plans (update)

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — November 2, 2012 @ 4:09 pm
The power came back on last night in our part of town!

Of course .. here is how it works. We take a mini-freezer to a friend’s place to stock with the meat from our freezer which is about on the limit of how long we dare push this … and then on the way home, decide to go see a movie – Argo – (brilliant flick!) … just so we have a nice warm place to sit and enjoy a movie.

And going by the time the clocks started at our house, it would appear that the power came back on as we walked into the movie theater.

Some slight irony in there somewhere. But .. we’re just to happy that we can now slowly have things return to normal again.

Neil vN

Comment by Neil vN — November 4, 2012 @ 12:11 am
Great news re power. Bet thousands are still without though and all the people who have no homes to even go back to.

Did you lose any food due to spoilage?

When we went through the cyclone Feb 2011 here, the State Gov. paid us $300 per couple and $450 per 2 kids to help restock with food which was generous of them.

I dare say it will take months, if not years to rebuild all property lost, and from some recent scenes I saw on TV I now see the new high tide mark is in property where houses once stood, that will be a nightmare to have to re-develop, re-survey for boundary markers, etc. Huge task.

Trev

Comment by Trev — November 4, 2012 @ 1:06 am
Glad to hear that. I’m about 20 minutes from you, and we are still without power here. Hopefully it will be restored soon…

Comment by Suzanne — November 5, 2012 @ 4:05 pm
Hi Neil,

Glad thing are getting back to normal for you there! I’ve been a fan of yours for a long time and am very grateful for you sharing your knowledge & insight…I also recently photogtraphed a wedding again and 21st, making use of the black foamie thing, bouncing,etc. and got very pleasing results. I can’t thank you enough (I also have your Off camera Flash book). Louis

Comment by Louis Lombard — November 9, 2012 @ 11:33 am