Northeastern DUer's, are you doing OK this morning?

[MadHound]

I'm hearing reports about hundreds of thousands without power due to the snowstorm, so I was hoping to see how DUer's in the path of this storm are doing. Do you have power, do you need help, are you nervously waiting for that snow laden tree to fall? Let us know.

[taterguy]

1. Obviously any DUer in the NE who doesn't reply doesn't have power

[MadHound]

2. I don't know,

I've seen DUer's who were without power still answer, thanks to Wi-Fi, batteries and generators. You never know:shrug:

[NutmegYankee]

24. I did that with Irene.

I'd bring up the battery backup and log in for about 10 minutes a day.

[Cassandra]

3. Ok but a meetup in Central Park was cancelled.

I'm in Manhattan; we rarely lose power, but if we had, I'd be saying something from my iPad. :-)

[Graybeard]

22. Central Park is closed today.

There are so many fallen trees and those that are in danger of falling that the city took the very unusual step of closing all city parks.

[handmade34]

4. Vermont is snowy but fine

[Raven]

5. Good Morning! I'm in the Monadnock region of SW NH. 2 -3 feet

of heavy, wet snow here but I'm at a pretty high elevation. I never lost power but I have an emergency propane generator that would kick on if I had lost it. We are fortunate that the temps will be in the 40's this week.

Best thing I ever did was put it the generator!

[Fumesucker]

7. +1 on the generator..

Civilization turns very quickly to "camping indoors" when the power goes off.

[mdmc]

6. Newburgh is snowy but fine

some power out.. but not me..

[Tom Rinaldo]

8. I'm in the Catskills, not far from Woodstock actually

We haven't lost power and the trees around us haven't fallen. Those were the concerns, otherwise snow is just snow and it doesn't matter a whole lot on the practical side if it is in late October or late November UNLESS a new pattern becomes apparent indicating accelerating climate change -that's another story.

Thanks for asking, I know there are places elsewhere that did have serious problems.

[mikeargo]

9. Central New Hampshire is fine

Got almost a foot, but the power stayed on all night. We dodged a bullet though, hearing reports that power is out in parts of Derry, Londonderry, and Manchester to the south of us. Last report I heard was 225,000 homes without electricity. That's close to the number after the ice storm of 2008 when some people didn't get their power back for days.

[onethatcares]

10. my folks in the suburbs of Reading PA are without power

and my dad is being a butthead about not going to my sisters. At least my sister got my mom to her house, she's 82, and into a warm place.

for some reason my dad wants to stay in his house and not accept a sunday meal at my sisters.

[no_hypocrisy]

12. +1. Got a father just like yours, age 88.

[onethatcares]

13. here I thought I was special

but he's starting to piss me off.

[no_hypocrisy]

14. You're just starting? My father's made me feel like he's going to fire me

since I was 12.

[onethatcares]

17. fire you, hell I quit at 16 cause I couldn't take his

crap anymore.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. My dad would have done the same

It's not being a butt head, is part of the aging process. I am dead serious, have him bring a something from home.

[onethatcares]

18. I don't think you understand, and trust me, I appreciate your input

but dig this.

6 months ago he had to surrender his drivers licence because he couldn't pass the eye exam, he shopped until he found a doctor that passed him, meanwhile he drove without a licence,ergo without insurance for that entire time. When told about how stupid that was/is, he smiled and said, "everytime I drive now, I'm breaking the law".

I'm 1100 miles away and trying to help my sisters out with what I know about the aging process since we cared for my fil the last three years of his life in our home.

and at this point I don't know what else I can say or do to make things smoother.

[no_hypocrisy]

20. Jesus, I swear we could be discussing the very same man.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. Northeastern New Jersey by the New York border.

We got 6+ inches of snow. Lost a lot of power lines and word is power won't be restored until Wednesday.

Several towns in Bergen County are without electricity although not completely throughout the towns, just pockets. There are large tree branches that have come down and block at least one lane of some roads.

I'm not lucky enough to have a garage, let alone a driveway. I spent a good amount of time digging out my car on the street. While the snow has started to melt, it's now heavy wet slush and very heavy to lift on the shovel.

[Old and In the Way]

16. Lost the power for 4 hours this AM in Central maine.

Just came back on within the past 1/2 hour. Got my firewood up to the house from my woodyard yesterday afternoon, 2 hours before the first flakes started to fall...talk about cutting it close....

About 10" on the ground here...worse thing about it is the ground isn't frozen, not even close. Any plowing is sure to make a mess on dirt runs like mine...probably will just let the mess melt.

[williesgirl]

19. I'm in the mountains in VA just West of DC. My power stayed on (thankfully)

but all the power in our small town was out most of Saturday. That meant both grocery stores, all fast food, pharmacies etc were closed. We got about 6 inches, but all these huge oak trees are still full of leaves. I had 4 very large limbs come off the ones lining my driveway, which blocked it completely.

We were prepared, but so lucky it stayed on. Even Comcast was still up out here.

Our hearts go out to those who lost power. From what I hear, there were terrible accidents on I-66 out here. Hope everyone is OK wherever you may be.

[Atman]

21. Much of CT and MA are disaster areas. National Guard called out in Western MA.

Fortunately, the sun is still pretty strong this time of years, so things are melting rapidly today, at last report there were 800,000 people without power just in Connecticut. I don't know what the numbers are for MA, but I know it's bad. My town got the snow, but only about 20% of town lost power (I wasn't among them, fortunately), whereas in the western half of the state many towns are 100% without power, and won't have it back for a week or more -- and it's going to drop into the low 20s tonight.

[Tesha]

26. The news stories were saying 650,000 W/O power in Massachusetts.

Here in NH, it's something like 225,000 "customers" (a different
measure).

Either way, "a whole bunch"! ;-)

Tesha

[NutmegYankee]

27. It's a little over 777,000 customers out in Conn.

Some forget that the standard measure is Customers vs People as it is unknown how many people are in a home. But I'd venture to guess that roughly 2 million people in just Connecticut will be spending another cold night in the dark. I did it last night, and it sucked.

[RagAss]

29. I lived for 35 years in Connecticut and never remember anything like this...

Even the famous "Ice Storm" of 1973 didn't cause the kind of outages that I'm reading about recently. Is this an infrastructure issue? or just some really hideous storms, the likes of which never hit the state before?

[NutmegYankee]

30. I was reading that Conn. has the most Urban forest of any state.

And the state is over 70% forested now, versus 30% in 1900. I think it's just several decades of trees not getting pruned/thinned by nature now catching up due to our nasty storms of late.

[RagAss]

32. Thanks...that makes sense.

[NutmegYankee]

23. I got power back at 3 AM.

I had lost it around 6 PM. I was lucky and only got about 7 inches of snow, but the wind did bring down branches. My neighbors lost their phone line after it got ripped from the house.

[Tesha]

25. Nashua, NH here. No power, no prospect of power for the next several days, but generally "OK".

We've got an inverter running from the gassed-up car
making a little electricity and that's enough to keep some
heat running in the house or make hot water or power the
fridge (mostly one-at-time). It also keep the iPhones, iPad,
and Macs charged-up so as long as AT&T's cell site stays
powered-up, we can be online, watch DVDs, and the like.

And heck, one can always read books.

So, so far, so good. At least while the clean laundry
holds out...

But thanks for asking!

Tesha

[NutmegYankee]

28. Bump for Updates.

[Arkana]

31. JUST got power back an hour ago.

Five days. FIVE GODDAMN DAYS OF LIVING LIKE A PILGRIM.

I went through Internet withdrawal.

[NJCher]

33. from northern NJ

Northern NJ, 20" east of NYC: Most of our schools are closed, but they might reopen tomorrow (Thursday). College classes are still in session, though.

I had bamboo that grows over 40' tall close to the power lines leading to my house. Every winter we cut it back, but this storm came early and it wasn't yet cut back. I was out there at 8 a.m. Sat., cutting it, and I worked until 12:30. The storm started at 10:30, so I was working in the snow. My clothing was so drenched that I had to come in and change clothes three times. It was hard to see, too, as the snow kept plastering my glasses with ice or rain. Fortunately I got it cut down, but my side yard is piled high with bamboo.

The street leading back to my house is lined with fallen branches. One has to weave through all the branches. In most places there is only one lane. Many of the major streets have at least half the street taken up with branches. You can be driving along at night and run right into one. Sometimes people go out and put up orange cones to help.

We didn't lose power but we did lose internet for about 24 hours. I had the iPod and the ColorNook loaded up with goodies, though, so I got through it. Fortunately we did not lose electricity, but a couple friends are going into their fourth day with no power.



Cher