rmchrgr
Skate And Destroy
I'm out in L.I., still without power after "Superstorm" Sandy wrecked the place. Went out last Monday just after 6:00 pm. Everyone around us has power, just our street remains out. Same thing happened after Irene, we were without power for six days that time. Someone is getting a letter.
rotest:
There are literally hundreds of trucks out but we seem to be the forgotten few. All the big trees that fell appear to have been cleared ('cept the giant one in our front yard) so I'm having a hard time understanding why we're still out. One of my neighbors told me that a 'part' was needed for something or other and power would not be restored until at least the 10th or 11th. Seems quite insane to me. Ours seems to be a typical situation here though where there is partial power to an area. Hard to figure out exactly why.
I did see a vehicle with a taped-on LIPA sign on its window drive by our house today. It seemed to stop at every house for a second them move on. The guy driving was referring to a list of some sort. I saw him flip a page over when he was in front of our house. That's all I got though.
LIPA has been really bad about communication. You can not call and talk to a person. They had an outage map online at one point but it went down, came back up in a different and even less accurate version, then went down again. It hadn't changed for several days before it disappeared anyway.
I understand this is a difficult deal for everyone involved and those working to fix it are doing their best. However, if we could just speak to a person who could give us genuine, accurate information, we would feel a whole lot better. I mean, it sucks that we have not had power for 10 days but if we had at least an idea of when to expect it to be restored rather than relying on hearsay and rumors, we could make appropriate plans. Hell, we were even thinking of leaving town before the next storm hit us today.
So yeah, within 10 days, we were hit with a tropical storm/hurricane then a 'nor easter that dropped several inches of snow. LIPA issued a statement tonight that the storm will hinder progress and even push it back farther. They also said their priority would be to restore those who have been without power the longest. Huh. How come we weren't the priority to begin with?
I have to say, my family and I have been lucky. We are able to stay at my mom's place in the city and my brother's place in Queens, neither of which lost power. Believe me though, this situation is no great shakes either - being displaced from your home, living out of a bag being cooped up with family in a one bedroom apartment while they are trying to get on with their lives.
We are thinking of our neighbors. There is a family up the block from us who has their 90 year old mother with them who can not care for herself. Their daughter has M.S. There are several older people around us too. We have a 5 month old and a four year old, hence the reason for us heading to the city.
Both our kids go to daycare, both were still without power on Monday. They finally got power back yesterday so went back home and dropped them off while I went to go clean up a bit. The kids are completely off schedule, the baby has been fussy non stop. He was sick for over a week with an ear infection, had to go out in the storm last Monday to get antibiotic.
I myself have not been to work since Friday before last. Not sure if I still have a job at this point. Don't care really. My wife has been going to her job but I've been with the kids pretty much every day, all day. Someone shoot me.
So we stayed in our own house last night. I was able to run an extension cord to our neighbors behind us. We plugged in our fridge for a bit. We got a space heater for the bedroom and plugged that in overnight. We all bundled together in one bed. It was literally freezing inside, about 50 degrees in the house.
So today, my wife goes to work and I was trying to get back to work. I drop off the one kid and find out they are closing early due to the storm. I have the baby, and he is really fussy. I have to drive to another town about 15 min. away to drop him off. I decide to keep him with me knowing that I had go pick the boy up early. Plus, we were getting low on gas, didn't want to go back and forth twice just for a few hours. So it's me and fussy pants for the morning in a cold house.
So I stay home for a bit and made the call to pack everything up again and get ready to go back to the city. I had to sort through stuff for four people and a cat and make sure we have everything we need but nothing we don't. I've been wearing the same clothes for what seems like a month and have not showered since Monday.
So I get everything packed up and go out looking for lunch. I see that the gas line is getting shorter so I get in line. Glad I held off initially after the storm hit, could not understand why people were waiting half the day for gas. 40 minutes in line and out the door, not too bad I guess. The boy's day care calls while I'm in line, they lost power, I need to go get him. I ain't gettin' outta line now, I'm close I tell the lady. She says say OK, get here when you can.
Pick up the kid, go back to the house, finish packing everything. I'm starving, its cold, I got fussy pants on one side and the older one under foot and whining. Finally make it out the door, grab a slice of pizza and drive through a pretty bad snowstorm into the city.
Just thought I'd share that. I'm beat.
rotest:There are literally hundreds of trucks out but we seem to be the forgotten few. All the big trees that fell appear to have been cleared ('cept the giant one in our front yard) so I'm having a hard time understanding why we're still out. One of my neighbors told me that a 'part' was needed for something or other and power would not be restored until at least the 10th or 11th. Seems quite insane to me. Ours seems to be a typical situation here though where there is partial power to an area. Hard to figure out exactly why.
I did see a vehicle with a taped-on LIPA sign on its window drive by our house today. It seemed to stop at every house for a second them move on. The guy driving was referring to a list of some sort. I saw him flip a page over when he was in front of our house. That's all I got though.
LIPA has been really bad about communication. You can not call and talk to a person. They had an outage map online at one point but it went down, came back up in a different and even less accurate version, then went down again. It hadn't changed for several days before it disappeared anyway.
I understand this is a difficult deal for everyone involved and those working to fix it are doing their best. However, if we could just speak to a person who could give us genuine, accurate information, we would feel a whole lot better. I mean, it sucks that we have not had power for 10 days but if we had at least an idea of when to expect it to be restored rather than relying on hearsay and rumors, we could make appropriate plans. Hell, we were even thinking of leaving town before the next storm hit us today.
So yeah, within 10 days, we were hit with a tropical storm/hurricane then a 'nor easter that dropped several inches of snow. LIPA issued a statement tonight that the storm will hinder progress and even push it back farther. They also said their priority would be to restore those who have been without power the longest. Huh. How come we weren't the priority to begin with?
I have to say, my family and I have been lucky. We are able to stay at my mom's place in the city and my brother's place in Queens, neither of which lost power. Believe me though, this situation is no great shakes either - being displaced from your home, living out of a bag being cooped up with family in a one bedroom apartment while they are trying to get on with their lives.
We are thinking of our neighbors. There is a family up the block from us who has their 90 year old mother with them who can not care for herself. Their daughter has M.S. There are several older people around us too. We have a 5 month old and a four year old, hence the reason for us heading to the city.
Both our kids go to daycare, both were still without power on Monday. They finally got power back yesterday so went back home and dropped them off while I went to go clean up a bit. The kids are completely off schedule, the baby has been fussy non stop. He was sick for over a week with an ear infection, had to go out in the storm last Monday to get antibiotic.
I myself have not been to work since Friday before last. Not sure if I still have a job at this point. Don't care really. My wife has been going to her job but I've been with the kids pretty much every day, all day. Someone shoot me.
So we stayed in our own house last night. I was able to run an extension cord to our neighbors behind us. We plugged in our fridge for a bit. We got a space heater for the bedroom and plugged that in overnight. We all bundled together in one bed. It was literally freezing inside, about 50 degrees in the house.
So today, my wife goes to work and I was trying to get back to work. I drop off the one kid and find out they are closing early due to the storm. I have the baby, and he is really fussy. I have to drive to another town about 15 min. away to drop him off. I decide to keep him with me knowing that I had go pick the boy up early. Plus, we were getting low on gas, didn't want to go back and forth twice just for a few hours. So it's me and fussy pants for the morning in a cold house.
So I stay home for a bit and made the call to pack everything up again and get ready to go back to the city. I had to sort through stuff for four people and a cat and make sure we have everything we need but nothing we don't. I've been wearing the same clothes for what seems like a month and have not showered since Monday.
So I get everything packed up and go out looking for lunch. I see that the gas line is getting shorter so I get in line. Glad I held off initially after the storm hit, could not understand why people were waiting half the day for gas. 40 minutes in line and out the door, not too bad I guess. The boy's day care calls while I'm in line, they lost power, I need to go get him. I ain't gettin' outta line now, I'm close I tell the lady. She says say OK, get here when you can.
Pick up the kid, go back to the house, finish packing everything. I'm starving, its cold, I got fussy pants on one side and the older one under foot and whining. Finally make it out the door, grab a slice of pizza and drive through a pretty bad snowstorm into the city.
Just thought I'd share that. I'm beat.
