anybody on the East Coast still alive?

[Jonathan]

Well?

[VLSmooth]

Main power was restored to my building this morning (was on generator power ~8:45pm last night), internet is up, water is down (pumps need repair), elevators are down (1st floor was flooded; water has receded). I have ~0.5 gallons of good water, ~1.5 gallons of old plastic bottled water. Food is fine (especially since I have power).

Last night was kind of surreal. It was only a bit windy until ~6:30pm; then the winds picked up like mad and the water steadily rose due to the storm surge and high tide. At the peak, cars in from of my building had water partway up their windshields, headlights fully submerged, car alarms going off like mad. The water breached my building's sandbags, hence the 1st floor flooding and elevator shutdown. After high tide the water receded quickly. Most of it was gone by 3:00am. I recorded video on an old Sony camera and have some poor Blackberry pictures in dire need of light. I'll see if I can extract the video off that camera later.

Curfew was officially lifted at 1pm; however, I did see people walking and driving around before then. Many lost power. PATH trains and the subway are down until further notice.

Many are much worse off than I; although not having running water sucks. Then again, I'm a bit used to it now due to multiple water main breaks and the silly September water issue that may be why I went to Hackensack UMC's emergency room.

[Dave]

I'm at work and its cold!

How did it compare to all the hurricanes you had in FL Vinny?!

[VLSmooth]

My experience with Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy is very different than the hurricanes I endured on the west coast of Florida, which is much less susceptible to hurricanes than the east. Hurricanes that crossed Florida from east-to-west were drastically weakened by the time they reached me. Peijen lived pretty close to me so he should have shared the same experience.

I remember helping my father cover windows with wood for the worst hurricanes, but it usually didn't come to that. Additionally I grew up on fairly high ground (for Florida) and never experienced flooding.

[quantus]

We had a tsunami "warning" (or whatever the low threat grade word they use is) Sunday night... My wife's sister's is in Hawaii and they actually evacuated the section where she lives due to the same quake. It apparently made for good surfing! Clearly, Vinny should've tried surfing last night to show mother nature how wussy she can be.

I was worried about zombies, I hadn't even thought about sharks!

... nor super-storm surfing with sharks!

[VLSmooth]

Speaking of zombies...
http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/82058/p ... l-download

Complete with printable coupons for Halloween:
http://static-www.ec.popcap.com/misc/zo ... oupons.pdf

[Jonathan]

You know, when I gave it a whirl, PvZ was so simple I gave up.

[George]

My lights flickered a few times on Monday, but the power never failed long enough to shut off my computer. No obvious signs of flooding here, and no downed trees or even branches. A couple of traffic lights were out on the way to work, and one grocery store was closed, but that's about it.

[Dave]

There was a mini game in WoW that copied PvZ and I used the mini pet sunflower from it for almost 6months!

[Alan]

Maggie and I were in San Antonio for a wedding (for someone who lives in the same building as Vinny!). We were supposed to fly back on Sunday but our flight was cancelled, they offered to rebook us on a Wednesday morning flight but we figured there was a good chance that flight would also be cancelled so we flew into Charlotte that day instead. We spent Sunday and Monday night in Charlotte, then drove back to NYC yesterday. Turned out to be a good decision, because all flights from Dallas to NYC ended up being cancelled today, and my newly married friend is stuck in Texas until Friday at the earliest.

Our apartment was pretty much unaffected, as was most of the Upper West Side. The only sign of anything happening is the (useless) duct tape on the lobby windows and the fact that there are a million cars (probably relocated from lower Manhattan) parked all over the neighborhood.

[Jonathan]

Does NYC even function if the subway does not run?

[Dave]

ZGood thing we can only focus on one news story at a time.

Hey! Jeremy Lin had 12 pts and 8 assists tonight!

[Alan]

Does NYC even function if the subway does not run?

It only barely functioned yesterday when the subway was totally out. Gridlock pretty much everywhere for hours, which led to the HVO rules being put into effect. The subways are running in a limited fashion today, but the ones I need to get to work are all functioning so my commute was back to normal today.

I liked Bloomberg's response to a question challenging the HVO rules, basically he said, "People need rides, and you need people in your car. Figure it out."