Irene

[Devlyn]

I'm lashing together my 246 bags of Funyuns (ate one bag) to make a raft, I'll come rescue you!

[justmeinoz]

TV doco here a few months ago covered this scenario, and looked at previous hurricanes that reached the NY area.  They pointed out the biggest  danger was a storm surge causing major flooding too.  Hope you are all high and dry.  Hard to imagine a single city with all of Oz's population bracing for a cyclone.

Karen.

[Amazon D]

I am half OFF-GRID now

everything but my 8-cuft frig/freezer + 5-cuft chest freezer, which i do use ice i make in winter too, for my old wooden ice box and wooden freezer.

I got a deep cycle marine battery (with carry handle) and a convertor and i am now online even though my power is still out due to a tree that fell and PPL electric being very very busy. Soon i will get solar for the food storage in warm times but still use ice in winter that i freeze outside. So my 14.00 monthly bill should go down as i re-charge the marine battery with my car when i drive to get things etc. I just need to get some charging wires run from under hood or back seat of hybrid battery to my marine battery.

[Karla]

I think it turned into a tropical storm by the time it hit Coney Island, I slept through it like a baby anyway

[Amazon D]

All we got was rain and some wind but it knocked out 3/4 of a million power here in Pa. They say i might not get power back until the 31st sheesh and our road is the only road in my township without power. Better planning for future. That chest freezer will surely help next time as that will keep for days whereas the frig freezer only can last like 36 hours until food rots.. good thing mine is only 8 cubic feet

[gennee]

Everything is fine here. Had a lot of rain and wind. From what I see there isn't any damage. It's pretty gusty right now but it's clearing up.

[tekla]

REO Speedwagon, live 1977 from Midnight Special.

REO Speedwagon - Ridin' The Storm Out *Live 1977*

[Renate]

Up here in Boston the peak of the storm was around 3 PM.
I thought that we had dodged this one when the power went out about 8 PM.
I went outside to see if I could see how far the blackout extended.
At the end of our street was a cherry picker truck starting to chop up a large tree.
The scene was illuminated by a light truck and the whole neighborhood had gathered.
We all watched them surgically remove the tree.
Finally the three phase primary lines at the top swung free from a large limb.
A few minutes later, to a large crackle and shooting incandescent bits, a cutoff switch was thrown and the block lit up.
Amid all the stories of week-long power outages we were relieved that ours had lasted only one hour.
Everybody went back to their TV's and internet but the neighborly pause had been nice.

[Julie Marie]

A friend of ours in CT was, at one time, dead in the path.  We talked over the phone yesterday then tried to Skype.  We almost connected but it dropped.  We've tried calling, emailing & Skyping since then.  No luck.  Her area had 20-40% outages.  My guess is she's scrambling trying to figure out how to save that packed freezer of food she has.  (she's an amateur chef, lives alone and cooks for an army)