Just got power back... here is my account of Sandy:

Glad you're okay. Rather hear from boots on the ground than the MSM--they are hysterical.
 
Where in Jersey are you?

I grew up in Clark, and my sister and her family are still there. I finally got to talk with her yesterday, she said it's just trees down everywhere and no power. My grandmother is in senior apartments in Cranford and they have power.

My sister said that there is no government around, and that neighbors seem to be helping each other, especially with food. Everyone is cooking up the perishables on outdoor grills and sharing them.
 
Nirvikalpa said:
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...
Click to expand...

Lucky you. There is almost zero damage in my town and we still can't even get an estimate when our power is coming back. I take that back, there were a few twigs that fell, so I guess that killed our power. There is no doubt in my mind they cut the power on purpose to fuck with us. There is no excuse for my town to not have power, tv, internet, or telephone service.
 
NCGOPer_for_Paul said:
Where in Jersey are you?

I grew up in Clark, and my sister and her family are still there. I finally got to talk with her yesterday, she said it's just trees down everywhere and no power. My grandmother is in senior apartments in Cranford and they have power.

My sister said that there is no government around, and that neighbors seem to be helping each other, especially with food. Everyone is cooking up the perishables on outdoor grills and sharing them.
Click to expand...

Right next to Clark, in Linden. I agree with their sentiments.

Glad to hear your grandmother is in senior apartments and they have their power - the apartments in Westfield were horrible, and the nursing homes even worse. I am hopeful they have power now.

tttppp said:
There is almost zero damage in my town and we still can't even get an estimate when our power is coming back. I take that back, there were a few twigs that fell, so I guess that killed our power. There is no doubt in my mind they cut the power on purpose to fuck with us. There is no excuse for my town to not have power, tv, internet, or telephone service.
Click to expand...

Dang, where are you at? That sounds horrible. PM me, perhaps I can help (need anything)?
 
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Nirvikalpa said:
Right next to Clark, in Linden. I agree with their sentiments.

Glad to hear your grandmother is in senior apartments and they have their power - the apartments in Westfield were horrible, and the nursing homes even worse. I am hopeful they have power now.



Dang, where are you at? That sounds horrible. PM me, perhaps I can help (need anything)?
Click to expand...

We are in Sandy Hook, CT. Fortuntetly we have a generator, but can only afford to use it a few hours a day. There are no other problems here. Like I said, its like someone just decided to cut our power as some sort of sick mind game.

If you have connecttions to get them to put our power, tv, and internet back, that would be awesome.

I'm telling you these utilities will be a thing of the past. They will eventually be privatized and will never have outages. I know how to get this done.
 
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Thanks for posting your experience. It's great to see that there are those out there who are willing to help their neighbors.

I shared your story with some coworkers and we all agreed that it's quite impressive. At the same time, we all kinda chuckled at the whole siphoning thing (none of us knew about that either). Sorry, hope that doesn't sound cruel... but it was kinda funny on our end. Regardless, glad to hear you're safe.
 
Nirvi, I think it would be really useful to a lot of people if, when all the dust settles, you share what you learn from all of this. You are a good writer with a unique perspective and experieince. You could write up an article for lewRockwell or something.
 
Ok, I have to share this. I am at a diner now and have seen my first FEMA employees - they left a $1 tip for these waitresses who lost a week of work!! :mad:
 
Glad you are safe! One thing I've gotten from reading about it in the news are the number of people killed by falling trees. Having been through 2 hurricanes I'm not sure some understand they need to stay inside until it's over. That and gas up beforehand because its a war zone after. Our CPA is in Jersey and their whole building still has no power.
 
people helping people, heart-warming. As it should be in times of crisis.

Great to hear from ya, Nirvi. So inspiring for you to be able to put your prodigious skills to such great use. Your Statistician ok, too, I assume?

May the chainsaws stay oiled, sharp, and in tireless teams of helping hands.
 
What part of Jersey is that? I haven't lived up north since the mid 80s. We have family in Bergen county. NE Jersey
 
From what I have heard from friends, some people completely unaffected, neighbot next door, no power. Note no power may equate to no phone, no internet, no heat, no hot water, no refrigeration...
Traffic was interesting with no lights*. Long gas lines. Food was stop and go, some stores tossing perishables, some stores fine (with generators)...

*Since people do not know how to handle themselves with no lights, cops starting to man these intersections.
Mail working, garbage ok (not for cleanup though)
 
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Carlybee said:
Glad you are safe! One thing I've gotten from reading about it in the news are the number of people killed by falling trees. Having been through 2 hurricanes I'm not sure some understand they need to stay inside until it's over. That and gas up beforehand because its a war zone after. Our CPA is in Jersey and their whole building still has no power.
Click to expand...

I was astonished that when we filled up the tank on Sunday, there was no one else at the station - I expected a lot of people to be filling up in anticipation. I guess all those people are learning that lesson the hard way, unfortunately...
 
malkusm said:
I was astonished that when we filled up the tank on Sunday, there was no one else at the station - I expected a lot of people to be filling up in anticipation. I guess all those people are learning that lesson the hard way, unfortunately...
Click to expand...

Holy crap, we did fill up on sunday didn't we?

opal said:
What part of Jersey is that? I haven't lived up north since the mid 80s. We have family in Bergen county. NE Jersey
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South North Jersey, the part by Newark/NYC.

georgiaboy said:
people helping people, heart-warming. As it should be in times of crisis.

Great to hear from ya, Nirvi. So inspiring for you to be able to put your prodigious skills to such great use. Your Statistician ok, too, I assume?

May the chainsaws stay oiled, sharp, and in tireless teams of helping hands.
Click to expand...

As you can see, he fared better than I. :p And thank you. :)
 
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