Hurricane Sandy has really become quite a scare! People are stocking up on batteries, ice, non-perishables, and other things.
I remember last year's Halloween storm- the Con Ed guys said that my house had the worst damage they had seen in all of NY. I sure hope it isn't as bad! It's supposed to get here later tonight.
I know there are quite a few East Coast puzzler's here. Have you guys been hit yet? Are you preparing? If so, with what?

-Doug

We have strong wind and a minimal amount of rain in Boston. But it shouldn't get too bad here. Good luck!

Looks like it's getting pretty bad outside... we're supposed to lose power for a while so we borrowed a generator. :P

Yeah the winds are picking up here. The problem with my town is that we have tons of trees and CL&P is just horrible. We were out of power for a week from Irene and out of power for a week from Snowtober. It's a shame Assassin's Creed 3 is coming out tomorrow, as most won't be able to go out and get it and most probably won't have power for a while. Although at least I got to pick up the new Layton yesterday.

I'm in Florida right now on vacation. I live in staten island, ny and my family says its bad right now. They canceled my flight home and I'm here for two more days.

The wind is picking up considerably, and the rain is still light.

-Doug

I'm closer to the middle of NY so I don't expect it to be as bad as the coast here...

At any rate, now we can all make jokes about how it was named after our own Sandy.

I'm in Maryland I've got a ton of rain minimal wind so far though.

Good luck everyone over there.. mighty scary all that!

It has been raining all day and the wind is picking up here in western PA.

Power is out here, wind is gusting like crazy.

Batten down the hatches guys.
Some good websites to follow it-
http://www.myfoxhurricane.com/stormtracker
http://www.wptv.com/generic/news/LIVE-V ... y-Coverage

This is actually quite scary. We haven't had any large trees fall (yet), but quite a few large branches. It's frightening when they hit the roof and slide across.
It is so windy you cannot even stand in one place without a large effort. The torrential downpour is completely overtaking.
The power has been regularly flickering. The power actually went for a few seconds, then came back on.

-Doug

Living through three or four of these a year I really feel sorry for you guys. The big ones terrify me. I hope you all manage to sleep. For heavens sake, stay inside and stay safe.

Midwest here....

I must say, there is nothing good on the news, only Hurricane News. But I suppose on the east coast that is important.

Stay safe, anyone on the coast!

100% of my town is out of power...likely be at least a week before power is restored.

Benf207, how are you accessing internet now? Is the cellular data network still working when the whole town is out of power?

Yep the cell networks are still up around here. Most of the strong winds have died down now. The windows were crackling at the 70 mph gusts. Some branches or something hit our house a few times, impossible to see right now though, I'll try take some pictures tomorrow when it's light out. My dad's house in Stamford on the other hand has a strong possibility of being flooded due to the storm surge. He's already been evacuated though.

Well, it looks like my house has been spared. Remarkably, we did not lose power, and no large trees fell. A million twigs and about a dozen huge branches fell, but no trees. The storm was at it's peak at Midnight last night, and it is leaving the East Coast and heading to the Midwest.
The news is horrible. 16 people dead in America so far, 50 homes in NYC burned to the ground, with 12 still burning. Subways flooding so bad that it will take 4 days to re-open. Hospitals having to be evacuated because the back up generator failed.
Adam and the whole Midwest- prepare yourself! This storm is not to be messed with.

-Doug

It's snowing here in Ohio. It's also very windy, but nothing really horrible yet. Hopefully, it will stay that way.

Good luck everyone on the east coast!

I'm amazed there were "only" 16 deaths given a storm of this size and ferocity, and how many lost their lives in the Carribean where the population is not so dense. Shows how well the authorities prepared and acted to ensure that everyone was safe. And it seems those few who did lose their lives were very, very unfortunate (e.g., stepping on an electrified puddle!). God bless them.

My colleagues and I were discussing this today. We really feel for those people.
As I said earlier, we put up with having to batten down the hatches 3-4 times a year with storms stronger than this one was. But we have it all the time. (Tonight, the winter monsoon is pushing 50 MPH up here on the hill-not hurricane strength, but pretty darned strong for a night time wind.) There is a huge difference and I'm both surprised and very glad that the number of casualties was so low.

Good response teams, smart people, or maybe mother nature just decided enough was enough. At any rate, I'm glad everyone on TP is safe and sound.

Beautiful weather in Massachusetts right now. Haven't been outside except to check the damage, but there doesn't even seem to be a breeze, and there's barely a cloud in the sky!

Sandy hit pretty hard yesterday. My grandfather up the street lost half his wooden fence. Besides that, though, I think we made out pretty well. Power's on, water's good, no broken windows. Just some fallen branches and random debris in our yard. Stay safe everyone who's still in the middle of the storm!

Guess we got lucky here - woke up this morning to a relatively calm outdoors.

It turns out nothing really bad happened. We lost power for a whole two minutes. Our basement didn't even flood.
It's still really cold outside though; it feels like it could snow!

Chandler

We are lucky here in another part of Maryland. Nothing bad happened, no interruption of power so far other that occasional flickering. It's cold outside, and because power means heat I am happy it turned out okay here.

I'm still stuck in Florida while my family is in staten island (ny). No power since the night before. Cells phones were a hit or miss. I had two flights canceled. And now I have to transfer to a different hotel out of Disney. I was having fun up until they closed the airports in ny. Flooding, trees down, no power and death. My heart goes out to people everywhere. And I'm praying for everyone.

Shapeways has been down for the last couple of days due to damage to their datacenter.

Visitors to their site are currently getting this message:


"We were impacted by the power outages in NYC caused by hurricane Sandy.

Mayor Bloomberg and New York City’s energy provider Con Edison say power could be restored to our primary datacenter within 4 days.

We are working to restore Shapeways.com to full service as quickly as we can, and hopefully faster than expected. We’ll continue to provide updates as information becomes available.

Thank you for your patience."