Nirvikalpa
Unapologetic Feminist
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2008
- Messages
- 5,287
NJ has been a complete mess the past 4 days. I've been working EMS duty for the past 3 on and off for a few hours at a time during the time I was not helping to manually pump my grandparent's flooded basement.
Around 8:00PM on Monday things started to go really downhill. The mall plaza near me lost power and the transformer blowing lit the sky. The sky for the next hour would light up green and blue every few seconds, and eventually the street before me and next to me lost power. A few houses still had power including mine, and we eventually became some of the last in my town to lost power - around 9:30PM.
We hooked up the generator and kept our TV on, and powered our police scanner. The police/EMS/fire line was going absolutely crazy, there was no time to talk on it at all. Then, we started hearing police communicating with fire rigs, and no dispatchers - they had lost communication with HQ and were basically on their own. Power lines were down all over the place, along with trees - one hit a police car but the cop was alright. There were a few houses in my town that caught fire and fire could not access them at all.
Around 11:30PM our cable went out. We stepped outside to let the dogs out and saw a giant tree limb crashed into our back fence and knocked my fence down. We also saw our neighbors running food from the inside of their house to the freezer in their garage, so we told them to hook up to our generator (which came in handy later).
The next morning we fixed the fence (sort of) with neighbors help. My grandparents had ~8in of water in their basement due to their sump pump failing when power went out. Luckily for us, the water from the river behind my house came up only to our fence (~300ft) and didn't flood the house. When the water table went down, the water in the basement began to recede and we mopped/scooped up the rest of it, and hand-bailed it went it was high tide for the next 2 days.
Tuesday I decided it was probably a good idea (which was a bad idea) to go to my squad and see if they needed extra EMTs. I couldn't even get within a few blocks of my house due to trees/live wires and flooding and there was no way to travel a few towns over. I went to my local firehouse and volunteered my services.
On Wednesday I decided to be brave and try and make my normal scheduled shift for my EMS squad (again). It took me an hour and a half to navigate myself to an area that normally is 15 minutes away. I don't think I was even prepared for the road closures, the amount of work the cops/firemen were doing, the amount of stress/anger in the air, the worry of the people... any of it. I passed at least 4 gas stations in Cranford, Westfield and that area... that had a 3-4 hour wait for gas. One of them wasn't even open yet and around 500 people were standing in line with gas containers, blankets, and lawn chairs. When I got out of my shift 7 hours later, those same people were still standing there.
The EMS calls have been absolutely insane. In my 3 days working we've had something like 50 welfare checks ("I live in Illinois but my parents live in [whatever], NJ, but I haven't heard from them since the storm, can you check on them for me?"), 200 lift-assists which were all at nursing homes/assisted living apartments (that had lost power and the seniors were falling down stairs, tripping in the hallways over generator cords, etc), 10 heart attacks, AT LEAST 40 CARBON MONOXIDE POISONINGS... including one at ONE TIME WITH 10 PEOPLE..., 200 "not feeling well" calls, a handful of "unconscious" calls, a few diabetic emergencies, a few "possible strokes"... within 5 minutes my town's firemen were dispatched to a "diabetic emergency," a "possible stroke," and a "unconscious... but breathing," patient.
The normal route to our favorite hospital takes around 20 minutes... on one call for a GI Bleeder, it took us 2 hours to transport and get around the downed trees, closed roads... etc etc. What a disaster.
Wednesday we discovered our plan for filling up the gas tanks of our cars so we could siphon out the gas for the generator... was a flop due to siphon blockers on new cars. Luckily our neighbor (whom we hooked up to our generator) was called into work at 4AM that morning (utility worker) and picked up some gas for us. Wednesday night we also were listening to the police scanner and heard that our local station was opening up, jumped into the car, and was one of the first 30 or so people in line there. Within 5 minutes, the line extended at least a mile long, and another mile down the major highway rt 1&9, which blocked up the highway.
Yesterday our power came on around 4:00PM, and cable/internet just returned today around ~11:30AM.
Now... some of my town still doesn't have power, hot water, cable, internet... and some in my town still have 8 or 9ft of water in their houses ("luxary townhomes with 'riverfront views'..." derp). Still a lot of power lines down, some live still... and still lots of trees down in roads and on houses. Our shoprite hasn't received a shipment of food since Tuesday, and it royally STINKS in there - their power AND their backup went out Monday night causing a flash which reminded me of an atomic blast all through our town... there's nothing left on the shelves there minus a cracker box or two.
I know it's easy for the media to comment on the bad things happening in NJ (like gas fights, which is happening btw), but there is also a lot of good happening in NJ. A lot of restaurants are giving out free meals and providing free wi-fi/charging stations of phones and laptops... restaurants who are nervous their food will go bad in a day or two are cooking it and giving it out to anyone who is hungry... dunkin donuts and starbucks has been giving out free tea and coffee to first responders and anyone who wants one, really... at least near me. People are really thankful.
It's been a crazy couple of days, and I think it'll be a crazy couple of weeks, sadly...
Around 8:00PM on Monday things started to go really downhill. The mall plaza near me lost power and the transformer blowing lit the sky. The sky for the next hour would light up green and blue every few seconds, and eventually the street before me and next to me lost power. A few houses still had power including mine, and we eventually became some of the last in my town to lost power - around 9:30PM.
We hooked up the generator and kept our TV on, and powered our police scanner. The police/EMS/fire line was going absolutely crazy, there was no time to talk on it at all. Then, we started hearing police communicating with fire rigs, and no dispatchers - they had lost communication with HQ and were basically on their own. Power lines were down all over the place, along with trees - one hit a police car but the cop was alright. There were a few houses in my town that caught fire and fire could not access them at all.
Around 11:30PM our cable went out. We stepped outside to let the dogs out and saw a giant tree limb crashed into our back fence and knocked my fence down. We also saw our neighbors running food from the inside of their house to the freezer in their garage, so we told them to hook up to our generator (which came in handy later).
The next morning we fixed the fence (sort of) with neighbors help. My grandparents had ~8in of water in their basement due to their sump pump failing when power went out. Luckily for us, the water from the river behind my house came up only to our fence (~300ft) and didn't flood the house. When the water table went down, the water in the basement began to recede and we mopped/scooped up the rest of it, and hand-bailed it went it was high tide for the next 2 days.
Tuesday I decided it was probably a good idea (which was a bad idea) to go to my squad and see if they needed extra EMTs. I couldn't even get within a few blocks of my house due to trees/live wires and flooding and there was no way to travel a few towns over. I went to my local firehouse and volunteered my services.
On Wednesday I decided to be brave and try and make my normal scheduled shift for my EMS squad (again). It took me an hour and a half to navigate myself to an area that normally is 15 minutes away. I don't think I was even prepared for the road closures, the amount of work the cops/firemen were doing, the amount of stress/anger in the air, the worry of the people... any of it. I passed at least 4 gas stations in Cranford, Westfield and that area... that had a 3-4 hour wait for gas. One of them wasn't even open yet and around 500 people were standing in line with gas containers, blankets, and lawn chairs. When I got out of my shift 7 hours later, those same people were still standing there.
The EMS calls have been absolutely insane. In my 3 days working we've had something like 50 welfare checks ("I live in Illinois but my parents live in [whatever], NJ, but I haven't heard from them since the storm, can you check on them for me?"), 200 lift-assists which were all at nursing homes/assisted living apartments (that had lost power and the seniors were falling down stairs, tripping in the hallways over generator cords, etc), 10 heart attacks, AT LEAST 40 CARBON MONOXIDE POISONINGS... including one at ONE TIME WITH 10 PEOPLE..., 200 "not feeling well" calls, a handful of "unconscious" calls, a few diabetic emergencies, a few "possible strokes"... within 5 minutes my town's firemen were dispatched to a "diabetic emergency," a "possible stroke," and a "unconscious... but breathing," patient.
The normal route to our favorite hospital takes around 20 minutes... on one call for a GI Bleeder, it took us 2 hours to transport and get around the downed trees, closed roads... etc etc. What a disaster.
Wednesday we discovered our plan for filling up the gas tanks of our cars so we could siphon out the gas for the generator... was a flop due to siphon blockers on new cars. Luckily our neighbor (whom we hooked up to our generator) was called into work at 4AM that morning (utility worker) and picked up some gas for us. Wednesday night we also were listening to the police scanner and heard that our local station was opening up, jumped into the car, and was one of the first 30 or so people in line there. Within 5 minutes, the line extended at least a mile long, and another mile down the major highway rt 1&9, which blocked up the highway.
Yesterday our power came on around 4:00PM, and cable/internet just returned today around ~11:30AM.
Now... some of my town still doesn't have power, hot water, cable, internet... and some in my town still have 8 or 9ft of water in their houses ("luxary townhomes with 'riverfront views'..." derp). Still a lot of power lines down, some live still... and still lots of trees down in roads and on houses. Our shoprite hasn't received a shipment of food since Tuesday, and it royally STINKS in there - their power AND their backup went out Monday night causing a flash which reminded me of an atomic blast all through our town... there's nothing left on the shelves there minus a cracker box or two.
I know it's easy for the media to comment on the bad things happening in NJ (like gas fights, which is happening btw), but there is also a lot of good happening in NJ. A lot of restaurants are giving out free meals and providing free wi-fi/charging stations of phones and laptops... restaurants who are nervous their food will go bad in a day or two are cooking it and giving it out to anyone who is hungry... dunkin donuts and starbucks has been giving out free tea and coffee to first responders and anyone who wants one, really... at least near me. People are really thankful.
It's been a crazy couple of days, and I think it'll be a crazy couple of weeks, sadly...
