In our neck of the woods the election took a back seat to the all-important questions: Did you get electricity back yet? Do you have a generator? Is it supposed to get cold tonight?
Here are just a few scenes from around our neighborhood:
Yes, we did get to vote in the election. But it seemed rather anticlimactic. So Obama won. Just like everyone's been predicting for the last year. What was all the sturm and drang about?
The important news for us was that, after seven days, we finally got our electricity back. We still have no TV, no internet, no phone. (Right now I'm sitting in a coffee house with wi fi.) But our house is warm again; we have water; we have light.
Please, I'm not asking you to feel sorry for us. First of all, after three days of suffering at home in the dark and cold, we ended up here:
Yes, we managed to book a reservation at a nearby Hilton Garden Inn -- the place was packed, and they didn't even charge us an extortionary rate. We were grateful.
More importantly, we know we didn't get hit nearly as bad as some other places -- Staten Island, coastal New Jersey, downtown New York City. The rest of the world goes on. But many people in these areas still don't have power; many lost their homes. And get this: Now the weather people are predicting a nor'easter coming in later today, bringing rain, high winds and possibly snow. Just what we need.
Last night, B and I still couldn't watch TV, but our DVD player was working. We searched our DVD library and found The Perfect Storm with George Clooney. Seemed fitting.
10 comments:
Been thinking about you and wondered how you fared. Happy to hear you are on the road to recovery. Dianne
I, too, was wondering how you were doing. You were lucky to get a hotel room. The romance of life without electricity fades awfully fast.
Glad to hear you survived Sandy's power with fewer inconveniences than most people. The recovery for those who lost their homes will take months, maybe years, and it will tax them deeply, emotionally, financially. Only time will heal some of these wounds.
We seemed to weather storms like this a bit better when I was young. I have been through several as I grew up in south Florida and even one that went through Long Island in 1954. Sure, these storms uprooted some trees, knocked out power, and filled every low lying area with water. But we seemed to handle them better back then. All that changed around the time Andrew hit. The devastation from that storm was incredible. Since then, we seem helpless to protect ourselves and to clean up afterward.
But I am glad you came through alright. Very glad.
Welcome back! Glad your ordeal is almost over.
That seems like an odd choice of movies considering the situation. Glad you have your electricity back and hope things soon return to normal for you.
CC
I'm so glad you survived Sandy with your home intact albeit with no power for a while. Those pictures of the storm damage are amazing. It's sobering, isn't it, to know how life can change in a day, an instant. We found that out in the Northridge Earthquake in 1994. While, like you, we had moderate rather than extensive damage to our home, we were without power for a week and living without things we had taken for granted was quite an education for us. I hope all is up and running for you very soon, Tom, and am so glad it wasn't even worse for you.
When you're without electricity, life does shrink down to the most basic requirements, doesn't it! That's some pretty impressive wreckage in your area. I'm glad you and yours are okay and that your abode is intact!
So very good to see you posting again.
Sad to see all those trees down. That was one heck of a storm that hit you. I'm glad you were able to escape to a hotel!
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