Slammed by Sandy

Local power line damage - it looked like this on every street in our area. Image from JCP&L on Flickr.

We are okay. If you follow the news, you've probably heard that Hurricane Sandy was brutal. NYC was devastated. Hoboken flooded. The Jersey Shore has been decimated. There are people that lost everything. People died. Millions of people lost power. There were (and still are) trees down everywhere - blocking roads, in people's yards and many on people's houses. I am so grateful we don't have a tree in our living room.

We are incredibly lucky - we only lost a few roof shingles and our gutter spouts are loosely hanging. A broken patio table. We lost power for 6 days - a short time compared to many other people who are still in the dark, freezing while temperatures drop into the 20s at night without heat.

We were prepared, but not prepared enough - the storm was a lot worse than we had imagined. We had enough gas and supplies for 3 days, not 6. With the state-wide gas crisis, poor Mike had to wait in line for hours and hours just to run the generator. And we have our power back before a lot of others, it could have been so much worse.

And now we have to clean up. Start putting things back together. Go back to work. Wait in monumentally long lines to fill our cars up with gas on odd numbered days. And keep our fingers crossed that the Nor'easter coming through mid-week doesn't knock out our power again.