Flip.

This is one way of getting around.

Has anyone posted about the Wall Street d-bag who was deliberately spreading false information on outages and such?

White House just announced Obama will tour NJ with Christie tomorrow.

If ordinary cooling ceased, the pool would take 25 hours to reach the boiling point, he said, giving the operators ample time to take corrective steps.

With zombies ravaging the control room staff?

I hardly think so.

White House just announced Obama will tour NJ with Christie tomorrow.

I do want to see Obama walk at a nice clip with Christie in tow.

Weather Channel just showed image of flooding in Washington DC- run-off and excess water that is in the Potomac.

As far as I can tell there has been no major flooding in DC so far. Washington Harbor in Georgetown is the main area of concern but the seawalls are up. Tonight is the big concern and all through Wednesday and into Thursday bears watching. There was some minor flooding on a man made island that has some parks and a golf course but that is about it in DC.

And risig sea levels has nothing to do with that, despite the dreams of Pinko McIgnorant who was posting up thread.

So, just to be clear: it's your contention that the height of sea level has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of flooding caused by a storm surge?

From the WSJ's weather reporter:

Battery Park gauge data: Peak surge arrived within 24 minutes of high tide, exacerbating flooding in NYC. A nearly perfect alignment.

This is one way of getting around.

Speaking of that -- I was just back up at Promontory Point in Lake Michigan on my lunch break, and the waves have gotten extremely impressive, I'd guess 20 feet at times. There are surfers out, most at the 57th Street Beach but a couple surfing by the Point itself. This seems astonishingly moronic as the Point is surrounded by a battered limestone seawall that features a lot of broken-off and half-submerged blocks. A successful ride will carry you into a rock and concrete face, while aborting a ride early might entail smashing into an underwater boulder. I mean, it's fine if you want to die, but it'd suck if someone drowned while trying to save you.

Snowshoe Mountain ski resort is sending out photos of its 18 inches of snow. So at least someone is really happy about this thing.

The reach of the storm continues to astonish.

So, just to be clear: it's your contention that the height of sea level has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of flooding caused by a storm surge?

To be clear, based upon my experience in the field - which includes having one of the foremost scholar of historical sea levels on my committee when I was a Ph.D. student, field trips to Barbados to drill corals used for paleo sealevel analysis, etc al, there's no evidence of a significant sea level rise in NYC (this is important, because relative sea level rise is not globally homogenous and differs depending on ocean circulation, isostatic rebound, etc. It's also more like 6", globally, in the last century, but who's counting). Sea level rise is also affected by natural warming, which makes up a significant minority of the warming from the 19th C to today, and more localized climate effects (i.e., warmth in greenland, dry weather in parts of antarctica, etc.) which may or may not be anthropogenic.

Of course, most of this has very little to do with your question, which is whether sea level height has a lot to do with surge. Of course, it does; of course, the effect is small. The surge last night was more than 2 feet higher than any other measured in the ~300 year record at NY Harbor, even if the entire 6" sea level rise since 1900 was anthropogenic (its not) and even if NY, locally, had observed a 6" sea level rise (it hasn't), then the sea level rise would only be responsible for 6" of the 13' storm tide. Last night's surge was emphatically not a anthropogenic phenomenon; only ignorant fools argue so, and those ignorant fools and their ridiculous assertions are the ones that allow the idiot deniers to stick around, because when you make stupid, ill-supported arguments and the deniers shoot it down, you increase the "creditability" of what they say.

'zop, what do you make of this guy's argument, saying that we can drop the caveat more and more these days that climate change shouldn't be linked to one major weather event? Do you agree?

Scientists have long taken a similarly cautious stance, but more are starting to drop the caveat and link climate change directly to intense storms and other extreme weather events, such as the warm 2012 winter in the eastern U.S. and the frigid one in Europe at the same time. They are emboldened because researchers have gotten very good in the past decade at determining what affects the variables that create big storms. Hurricane Sandy got large because it wandered north along the U.S. coast, where ocean water is still warm this time of year, pumping energy into the swirling system. But it got even larger when a cold Jet Stream made a sharp dip southward from Canada down into the eastern U.S. The cold air, positioned against warm Atlantic air, added energy to the atmosphere and therefore to Sandy, just as it moved into that region, expanding the storm even further.

Here’s where climate change comes in. The atmospheric pattern that sent the Jet Stream south is colloquially known as a “blocking high”—a big pressure center stuck over the very northern Atlantic Ocean and southern Arctic Ocean. And what led to that? A climate phenomenon called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO)—essentially, the state of atmospheric pressure in that region. This state can be positive or negative, and it had changed from positive to negative two weeks before Sandy arrived. The climate kicker? Recent research by Charles Greene at Cornell University and other climate scientists has shown that as more Arctic sea ice melts in the summer—because of global warming—the NAO is more likely to be negative during the autumn and winter. A negative NAO makes the Jet Stream more likely to move in a big, wavy pattern across the U.S., Canada and the Atlantic, causing the kind of big southward dip that occurred during Sandy.

Speaking of that -- I was just back up at Promontory Point in Lake Michigan on my lunch break, and the waves have gotten extremely impressive, I'd guess 20 feet at times. There are surfers out, most at the 57th Street Beach but a couple surfing by the Point itself. This seems astonishingly moronic as the Point is surrounded by a battered limestone seawall that features a lot of broken-off and half-submerged blocks. A successful ride will carry you into a rock and concrete face, while aborting a ride early might entail smashing into an underwater boulder. I mean, it's fine if you want to die, but it'd suck if someone drowned while trying to save you.

Surfers do their thing at Fort Point in San Francisco all the time, and it looks equally crazy.
You have to really know what you're doing, and then maybe get killed anyway.

'zop, random question - how old are you?

#612, the problem with that post (and the reason scientists are cautious) is that last winter, with it's ridiculous warmth, was because of an artic oscillation signal and NAO signal precisely opposed to what that research alleges is a result of low summer sea ice. The other issue is that its not entirely clear which is the "independent" variable b/w the sea ice and the AO/NAO; and there's some thought that the AO/NAO state (which, other than last winter, has been anomolously low for a decade or so) may be driving a portion (but certainly not all) of the sea ice melting. This is particularly interesting b/c for 5 years or so prior to last winter, we were in a low sunspot regime, lowest since the 19th C, and low sunspots clearly coorelate to cooler eastern N. American/European climate, and the reason for this is poorly understood but the best guess is that somehow, galactic cosmic ray flux modulates the NAO - and if you figure out how, you have a nice tenure track position waiting for you somewhere.

Because the climate system is so complex, people who study it (and are not political advocates are very conservative about making assertions.

there's no evidence of a significant sea level rise in NYC

Who was talking exclusively about NYC? My parents' house is in south Jersey, and the peak of the surge just missed clearing the top of the dunes in front of their house. If it had been another eight inches higher (or six inches, or even less), there's a good chance they'd be buying new carpets and pumping out the crawlspace.

Last night's surge was emphatically not a anthropogenic phenomenon; only ignorant fools argue so, and those ignorant fools and their ridiculous assertions are the ones that allow the idiot deniers to stick around, because when you make stupid, ill-supported arguments and the deniers shoot it down, you increase the "creditability" of what they say.

Again, you may want to re-read what I wrote, because you seem to be arguing with a different person who said something else. I never said that the entire storm surge was a function of global warming, but simply that the increased sea levels that have resulted from global warming increased the height of the surge. Which they did. The fact that there were other factors (such as the tides) that also increased the surge does not in any way invalidate what I said.

I'm glad that you were able to insulate yourself against charges of partisanship by totally misrepresenting my position, though.

Weather Channel just showed image of flooding in Washington DC- run-off and excess water that is in the Potomac.

In DC, the storm sewers are connected to the regular sewage system, so when a storm overwhelms the system, you're more or less flushing your toilet directly into the Potomac. Drink up, down stream users.

Surfers do their thing at Fort Point in San Francisco all the time, and it looks equally crazy.
You have to really know what you're doing, and then maybe get killed anyway.

I'd trust the experience and skills of a surfer in California far more than I would trust those of a surfer in Illinois.

I'd trust the experience and skills of a surfer in California far more than I would trust those of a surfer in Illinois.

I'm from Santa Cruz California and have surfed for most of my life. Hitting the rocks can be a pretty uncomfortable thing but not really life threatening. Anybody who paddled out into the big waves probably knew what they were doing. I've never met anybody from Illinois that surfed but have met people from Munich that surf quite well.

German surfing

Here's where I learned how to surf

Surprisingly few people actually hit the cliff. People die when they are in rocky areas and get swept off the rocks while the waves are big. That happens a couple times a year but surfing is pretty humbling and you build your way up.

Re: the discussion of Promontory Point, Chicago.

I can remember being out there in the aftermath of a winter storm in the late 70's. All of the big rocks lining the north side of the point, including the topmost level, were coated in several inches of ice. Up on top of the point, concrete lampposts had a layer of ice on their north sides, all the way to the top. All of which tells you what the spray can do.

I also remember watching serious waves from the point, and I can't imagine how anyone could possibly surf them. These weren't long, predictable rollers like you see on an ocean shore. There were no long crests at all, just short sharp wave peaks popping up quickly and dropping back down quickly, with a the appearance of waves traveling in multiple directions.

that the increased sea levels that have resulted from global warming increased the height of the surge

as long as you make clear that you don't mean anthropogenic warming, sure.

I'd trust the experience and skills of a surfer in California far more than I would trust those of a surfer in Illinois.

Don't be so sure, I remember watching a documentary about a wave pool surfer from Arizona who went to Hawaii to surf the big waves on the North Shore and ended up winning a major tournament and the sister of his arch-rival, thanks to a little help from his friend Turtle.

#622 So true, you won't die when you hit the rocks as long as you scrub it... kook

lots of photos

I'm now firmly convinced that instead of knowing next-to-nothing about surfing, I actually know nothing about surfing. So thanks, everyone.

Or maybe we can somehow connect all the exercise equipment in the world to the power grid. Everybody could exercise and provide more power! Solve the obesity and energy problems at once! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

What's actually a little surprising about this is that generating electricity isn't the standard on treadmills and stationery bikes.

The equipment and my gym doesn't turn on until you start going. I figured that they avoid batteries by running on human sweat.

I'm now firmly convinced that instead of knowing next-to-nothing about surfing, I actually know nothing about surfing. So thanks, everyone.

I know that Charlie don't surf. Where does that put me on the knowledge spectrum?

With the subway in the shitter for the foreseeable future, I'd imagine the bike sellers in the city are about to be making more money.

I'd imagine the bike sellers in the city are about to be making more money.

Be a good time to be a bike mechanic too.
Anyone here know of a good alternative to LIPA's site for finding out about power outages? They basically just seem to be saying, "Yeah it's baffed, we're working on it."

In DC, the storm sewers are connected to the regular sewage system, so when a storm overwhelms the system, you're more or less flushing your toilet directly into the Potomac. Drink up, down stream users.

That's not uncommon in the older areas of older cities and towns. That's the case here (Evansville, IN) and the local water/sewer utility is having to spend something like 200 million dollars to try and correct the situation. This was mandated by one or more sections of the federal government (not that it's a bad idea, many folks get their drinking water from the Ohio River); it is just ironic that no one seems that concerned about the situation in Washington.

Congress doesn't like to give DC money to do much of anything. Conressmen don't get reelected by spending your tax dollars to fix up a city not in their district.

Congress doesn't like to give DC money to do much of anything. Conressmen don't get reelected by spending your tax dollars to fix up a city not in their district.

Well, it's not like the DC Council is making sewer modernization a priority, either. I doubt Congress would overturn DC's spending more $$ in that area.

CNN the latest to spout nonsense about "Atlantic City's historic Boardwalk being destroyed."

Not. Even. Close.

It got wet, and a couple of casino signs got minor dings.
A section of boardwalk - lower case b - by the inlet, not the Boardwalk, got tossed around. Sandy did the city a favor, as it was dilapidated.

CNN couldn't have offered a credible source because no credible source said so (and no, an NBC blog that made the mistake earlier is not a legit "source.")

And there are people out there who still say, "Oh, I don't see the point of newspapers anymore. I get all the information I need on the internet and TV."

be careful which "internet" you read...

I doubt Congress would overturn DC's spending more $$ in that area.

Really? Because Congress has been so forthcoming in everything else?

I get all the information I need on the internet and TV."

be careful which "internet" you read...

Well, if you treat the internet/TV like the newspaper and wait a day or so you'll get a ton of information, much more than you ever would with a newspaper.

CNN the latest to spout nonsense about "Atlantic City's historic Boardwalk being destroyed."

Not. Even. Close.

I believe Gov. Christie made the same claim on NBC this evening.

Maybe that's the way to get more aid for your state.

I doubt Congress would overturn DC's spending more $$ in that area.

Really? Because Congress has been so forthcoming in everything else?

Outside of a few hot button issues, Congress doesn't really mess with the DC budget much any more, except for things like adding extra money for charter schools and scholarships. Sewer modernization isn't something Congree would prevent DC from spending its own money on.

I doubt Congress would overturn DC's spending more $$ in that area.

Really? Because Congress has been so forthcoming in everything else?

Outside of a few hot button issues, Congress doesn't really mess with the DC budget much any more, except for things like adding extra money for charter schools and scholarships. Sewer modernization isn't something Congress would prevent DC from spending its own money on.

I believe it was the Seaside Heights boardwalk that was destroyed. The rollercoaster is in the ocean.

Christie said tonight at his press conference that AC was "not as bad as we feared."

But too late - Obama coming to AC on Wed.
You truly can't blame Obama's staff; last-minute planning, iconic city, bogus reports of devastation.

There is enough debris, leftover water, etc to make it work re photo op anyway. It's just nothing like the damage in the next island down, Ocean City, for example. Or even Seaside Heights an hour+ north, where Snookie once roamed the earth.

Con Ed says everyone in Manhattan should have their power back within four days, according to friends on my Facebook feed.

Any estimate when the NYC subways will be running?

Bloomberg says not likely for 4-5 days
and PATH 7-10 days, is the estimate

those MIGHT be beaten, but it's grim all week almost certainly

Nets-Knicks in Brooklyn season opener Thurs should be seen by thousands, though.....

I don't trust those estimates, because I don't think they fully have a handle on the extent of the damage yet. How can they until the Tunnels have all been pumped out and a full assessment of the damage can be made ? THAT didn't happen in 24 hours, so those estimates are only good for SOME PORTIONS of the systems. Some people will be a lot luckier than others with this.

On storms and warming - not knowing a lick of meterology so beware of over simplification

Storms (and weather in general) are caused mostly by temperature dis-equilibria. That is temperature differences causes large air masses to move around. The Temperature gradient is the energy source. This gradient is in 3 dimensions - including differences between land and water.

So my guess would be that it's not the warm vs. cold that could create storms, but possibly the rate of change of temperature - and probably more importantly - the spatial differential in the rate of change of temperature.

hoboken being evacuated, national guard going in there with ready to eat meals and such. hope a bunch of my friends and jeffo got out ok; they had evacuation of basement/first floor places on sunday.

my dad goes to a.c. periodically and said what howie said, the boardwalk is not in the center of the action. the pier at seaside heights got ripped pretty severely.

And there are people out there who still say, "Oh, I don't see the point of newspapers anymore. I get all the information I need on the internet and TV.

be careful which "internet" you read...

Right, because newspapers certainly never make mistakes.

Has anyone posted about the Wall Street d-bag who was deliberately spreading false information on outages and such?

The congressional campaign manager who confessed to spreading falsehoods on Twitter during Hurricane Sandy has resigned from Christopher Wright's New York City congressional campaign.

Shashank Tripathi, under the guise of his Twitter handle @ComfortablySmug, sent out several pieces of misinformation during the worst of the storm Monday.

He is being blamed for spreading the now-widely debunked rumor that the New York Stock Exchange trading floor had been flooded with 3 feet of standing water. The rumor was eventually picked up by CNN and New York Magazine until NYSE officials shot it down.

In a message on his Twitter account late Tuesday, Tripathi apologized and offered his resignation on Wright's House campaign for the 12 th congressional district.

Tripathi was first outed by BuzzFeed.

"I wish to offer the people of New York a sincere, humble and unconditional apology," Tripathi wrote. "During a natural disaster that threatened the entire city, I made a series of irresponsible and inaccurate tweets."

Other rumors included a false report that power would be shut down in all of Manhattan and that the New York subway would be closed for the entire week.


########## can run, but they can't hide ...

word is Nets-Knicks game Thurs in BKN will be canceled any moment now

646, stick to your day job.

.The rollercoaster is in the ocean.

That would make for a much more interesting ride.

We have confirmation that the baby walrus is safe.

Some trains will be running with limited service starting tomorrow, according to the MTA twitter feed. Schools are closed for the rest of the week, though teachers/administrators are to report Friday. Lassus's source is different from mine; Con Ed said on their Twitter last night that power will be restored in three days; though it's up to a week for those served by overheard power lines. Many (if not all) buses are running (albeit with detours) and are free. Grand Central is now open.

LGA (which does not have an official twitter that I can find) is flooded. Delta says it MIGHT be open tomorrow, but I'm not going to take the airline's word for it.

Howie's right, Brooklyn game is off, per NBA.com.

Though the NBA had said Tuesday night the game would go on as planned, Bloomberg asked the league that it be called off.

I would add to the campaign staffer who quit that any reporter who simply repeats something posted on Twitter ought to also quit.

the mta map for tomorrow's working lines is pretty crazy. I live in Jackson Heights, Queens and have to report for work in Harlem, Manhattan. The F line is the one line serving all of Queens. Holy Moly!

This is a portion of a pool reporter's news feed on riding in a helicopter today directly behind another helicopter - Marine One - that carried President Obama:

"After eight minutes in the air we appeared over the Atlantic City skyline, with the casinos rising along the Shore. Your pooler witnessed a soccer game going on and initially not a great deal of devastation. The Atlantic City boardwalk seemed in tact near the main drag by the casinos. North things got hairier."

other than making "intact" two words, yes.

.............

fyi, some Christie ad-libs in Sayreville today (Jon Bon Jovi's hometown), again off the pool feed. Even Democrats are eating it up:

In telling the governor about her situation, resident Deborah Decker said she didn’t want to be too much of a pain.

“Don’t worry,” Christie said. “I’m as big of a pain in the ass as anybody.”

He told a 95-year-old woman who recently had heart surgery: “I want you to relax. You had all that work done on your ticker, I don’t want you to get wound up.”

Kim Bosso introduced the governor to her son, who has cystic fibrosis. He has been cut off from his breathing machines since the power went out, and the utility company told her she’s not a priority case while her insurance won’t cover her if she goes to a hospital.

“This is my lawyer,” Christie said, introducing her to Charles McKenna, his chief counsel. “He’s going to take care of you.”

By "take care of you" I assume he means that his lawyer is going to suck the life force out of her.

By "take care of you" I assume he means that his lawyer is going to suck the life force out of her.

Or whack the hospital guys.

EDIT: rest of post redacted - forgot this wasn't the political thread.

@626 - Hey, that's my combined welfare/energy proposal!

I need LaGuardia undelayed Wednesday. The forecast indicates that is likely.

Yeah, so that didn't happen.

Yeah, so that didn't happen.

No. The forecast held, though.

Power back on in the hokie household. Snow is starting.to melt.

To the east, not so lucky. Dozens of collapsed building and homes under 2ft+ of snow. One friend of mine had 42 inches of snow with nearly 5ft drifts.

On ABC they were showing how in tons of areas of NJ you can hear the wizzing and humming of natural gas that's leaking. They've been trying to call the gas companies to turn them off and the gas company is basically saying "it's not going to be a problem".

Presumably it will only be a problem once somebody gets blown up.

Presumably it will only be a problem once somebody gets blown up.

If they don't think gas leaks are a problem, do they think they're a solution?

Well, eliminating a few people from New Jersey does sound like a solution to something.

I need LaGuardia undelayed Wednesday. The forecast indicates that is likely.

Has nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with the fact that most of the airport is still underwater. You could fly a jet in, but you'd have a helluva time landing it and it probably wouldn't be ready to fly off anywhere else anytime soon.

Kim Bosso introduced the governor to her son, who has cystic fibrosis. He has been cut off from his breathing machines since the power went out, and the utility company told her she’s not a priority case while her insurance won’t cover her if she goes to a hospital.

“This is my lawyer,” Christie said, introducing her to Charles McKenna, his chief counsel. “He’s going to take care of you.”

Hell, no. I don't want to start liking the fat ####.

Christie with another masterful effort today, by ALL accounts, in Moonachie in the shadow of the Meadowlands Sports Complex (tidal flooding overwhelmed a couple of towns in Bergen County, although most of the worst is down the shore).

One elderly woman told Christie, "You my man!"
"And you're my lady tonight," he replied.
She walked away saying, "You should be the President."

Whats happening in the Rockaways, and in Staten Island, while not on par with Katrina, is NOT good folks.

THere are a lot of desperate people not getting any help, or it's coming in very slow. The reports I'm seeing are almost unbelieveable.

Whats happening in the Rockaways, and in Staten Island, while not on par with Katrina, is NOT good folks.

19 reported dead on Staten Island alone.

Some interesting background in another Times story:

In the Roaring ’20s, when Nick Carraway came to life in the pages of “The Great Gatsby,” a train ride from West Egg to Manhattan took him past a desolate stretch of ground in Queens.

Tucked into a few lines is a clue to long-forgotten chapters in the natural history of New York City.

Looking out the window, Carraway describes the scene: “This is a valley of ashes — a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.”

The valley of ashes evoked by F. Scott Fitzgerald was, in history, the Corona Ash Dump, a receptacle for incinerated garbage; not long after the novel was published, Robert Moses, the shaper of 20th century New York, bought the dump, hauled off millions of tons of garbage, and staged the 1939 World’s Fair there. Today, it is Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, where the United States Open is played.

But before it was anything shaped by humans, that ground was the kind of natural place that, this week showed, we urgently need: salt marsh, a living bumper that would protect the lands behind it by absorbing the force of surging tides.

About 300,000 acres of tidal wetlands around New York City have been filled in by human development in the 19th and 20th centuries. All that remains are 15,500 acres, according to a 2009 report prepared by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey....

Another thing i was thinking about is do any of the economic cost estimates take into account lost productivity from NY NJ ?

Te impact of this event must be many times greater than 9/11 in terms of lost productivity going forward

I have finaly escaped the island nation of Hoboken! Water finally went down so Thursday morning we could get out. Spent most of the day cleaning out the ground floor garage in our building - water came up about 4 feet on all sides of our building - lots of sludge and junk, it wasn't pretty.

Walking around town yesterday - there were some places with generators, and there were charging stations set up and FEMA had an 18 wheeler full of big ice bags. They were also giving out food at some places, had charging stations set up and the CVS was open. People who had power were had signes out "Free Wi-FI" - so it seemed people were pulling together pretty well. I did enjoy the fact that in an area where everyone is freaking out about getting gas, there were a good half-dozen National Guard trucks outside City Hall....all of them idling the engines.

People in my building were pretty well stocked - we even had a Halloween party for all the kids on Wednesday. Our building is one of the lucky ones - our power came back on last night. Took the bus in this morning - most of town still seemed dark.

Hopefully they can get power restored to more places - that plus getting more gas in should help with a lot of the area's recovery.

In DC, after being stuck in ATL for a week. Waiting for my connecting flight to LGA in a half hour. I'm scheduled to land at 11:30, and so far, it looks like it's on time. I'm thinking there will be a looooong wait for a taxi, with the gas shortage that's going on. I can't wait to get the hell home. If I am back in my apartment by 5 o'clock, I will consider that a success.

I'm checking in for the first time since the storm and haven't read any of the posts yet. My wife and I live in the West Village although not in any of the flood zones, and we lost power (and running water and heat along with it) around 8 p.m. Monday night. We had stocked up on supplies including storing about 10 gallons of water in various pots and containers, and our gas stove continued to work so we were able to cook. AT&T cell service is also out so we were basically getting all of our news by battery-powered radio.

On Tuesday afternoon we walked around a bit and surveyed the damage. Lots of trees and branches down in our neighborhood, some of them on cars, and when you got closer to the West Side Highway you could see where there had been flooding (mud in the street, cars that had floated into the middle of the road) but the water had receded from most places and the cleanup had already started. One four-story apartment building on 8th Ave. had its facade completely torn off and you could see directly to the apartments inside, but supposedly nobody was hurt. We eventually walked up to Times Square -- below 26th St. on the West Side was totally dark, above 26th things were starting to come back online. We ended up having dinner by the Port Authority and catching a movie in Times Square before walking home by flashlight.

As of today, power is still out in our neighborhood and everywhere below 26th St. (on the East Side I think it's still out below 39th). Last night we saw the Freedom Tower and other parts of Tribeca lit up so I'm assuming part of downtown has electricity by now. The latest I've heard is that power should be restored by 11 p.m. Saturday night, although on the radio this morning I heard that it might be as early as tonight.

My office in Gramercy also lost power, and they are only allowing critical staff in to manage the strain on the emergency generators. My team has been working from a conference room in one of our lawyer's offices in midtown for the last few days which at least has power, water and Internet access. Business is still getting done with clients outside the city, but most clients in Manhattan have not been around given difficulty of getting here. My wife's office is open although very few people are in. She and I have been getting around by bicycle, showering at the New York Sports Club, and generally eating out before heading home each night. All in all, it's been pretty manageable but not something I would like to repeat anytime soon.

My parents in Westchester are in a similar situation. They haven't had power at home since Monday but they do have (cold) running water. Both of their offices are open though, so they have been going to work during the day. My father is diabetic but he has been able to keep his insulin refrigerated at work. The latest I heard was that they are supposed to have power back by the middle of next week, but hopefully it will be sooner.

My thoughts are with you and your family, Dave, especially with your father and his insulin.

I swear, the more I read and hear, the worse it sounds, almost post-apocalyptic. I mean, I heard about some guy pulling a gun in a gas line, that some people in certain areas might not get power back permanently for months, the National Guard had to get generators from a fashion show that was supposed to be next week, the Marines are supposed to be landing in New Jersey to help out, the NY aquarium (home of, yes, the Baby Walrus) is considering evacuating all of the animals (I can't imagine how you "evacuate" a shark)...

And this is just news I'm getting from TV and the internet. I have to imagine there's a parade of horribles that we aren't hearing about...

(Oh, and apparently the mistake by the lake is a Zombie)

Thanks Gamingboy. We got power back around 4 a.m. last night. My parents are still without power and it seems the biggest issue up there now is the lack of heat, as it's supposed to get into the high 30s tonight. But there are various relatives they can stay with if it gets too cold for them.