Yesterday was Sunday and day six of this disaster. Sunday is usually considered a day of rest, relaxing and gathering yourself before the start of your Monday through Friday work week. That wasn't really the case here on Long Island. Yes, the power was restored for more people all over the island. At the start of the aftermath of this disaster there were some 800,000 plus residents without power. That number has been reduced to a mere 200,000 plus without power. Even worse, there are still some 40,000 plus families who are displaced because of the complete wipe out of their homes.
I am still one of the lucky ones who is just without power for the 7th day. I have coworkers and relatives who have suffered far, far worse and are living either at our job or with relatives, friends (some of whom have no power themselves) or in shelters. Every time someone gets a phone call...and a notice that they have power it's a room full of cheers as if they hit the lottery. Even worse was seeing the exceptionally long gas lines all day Sunday - everywhere. Some people spent as long as four hours waiting in line with their cars for a tank of gas. I don't know if the "Hunger Games" book and movie have quite captured this warp of a scene. 21st century people mobbing around from gas station to gas station for what eventually amounts to just a few gallons of gasoline.
Today is Monday and I got up and out my door at 4:15 am, after receiving a notification from a coworker of a new gas pump opening up nearby and the wait was only five minutes. I woke up the family and ran out to go gas up our three cars and the gas container for our generator. While we were in line, we texted and Tweeted our neighbors. We waited 15 minutes at the most and got gased up for another day. Maybe another week. A week? Yes a week.
We called our notorious Long Island Power Authority, aka LIPA, who told us that even though most of the power has been returned to our particular town, due to complications we might not get restoration until Wednesday morning. That's the estimate for our strip. Ah...so there is a light at the end of the tunnel?? The problem with that information is...we are on target to get hit with a Nor'Easter by Wednesday night. LIPA almost always loses power with these type of storms. So the light at the end of the tunnel might just actually be another lightning bolt that's about to strike our area.
On Facebook I posted a picture of a hamster running in one of those wheels, and the wheel is setup to power a mini generator, which powers a light bulb. I wrote as a caption, "I'm starting to like this idea." Then I posted another picture of a large flashlight and wrote, "This will be the 7th night that I get to say 'Sorry hun, but that is just a flashlight in my pocket." Lastly I posted a picture of a female meteorologist, otherwise known as a weather-woman for a Mexican TV station. She has a great figure and is dressed in a white, low riding waistline pants and a midriff top, exposing her pierced belly button and six pack abdominal muscles. Should I throw in that she's a little busty too? My commentary there was that our local weathermen and weatherwomen won't have to dress like this, this week to get peoples attention.
There are definitely stories of schools, gymnasiums and businesses opening up simply to invite people to come in and charge up all of their electronics. There isn't much doing in the way of sales or customer traffic and most schools are closed. That is, not unless you're selling a generator or a gas can. So overall this is a nice gesture in recognizing that we still need to be able to function with some semblance of our former modern selves. Pretty amazing.
If you're familiar with Oliver Twist, that "Food Glorious Food" song can be substituted with Fuel, Glorious, Fuel...that's all we live for!
Time to recharge!
I am still one of the lucky ones who is just without power for the 7th day. I have coworkers and relatives who have suffered far, far worse and are living either at our job or with relatives, friends (some of whom have no power themselves) or in shelters. Every time someone gets a phone call...and a notice that they have power it's a room full of cheers as if they hit the lottery. Even worse was seeing the exceptionally long gas lines all day Sunday - everywhere. Some people spent as long as four hours waiting in line with their cars for a tank of gas. I don't know if the "Hunger Games" book and movie have quite captured this warp of a scene. 21st century people mobbing around from gas station to gas station for what eventually amounts to just a few gallons of gasoline.
Today is Monday and I got up and out my door at 4:15 am, after receiving a notification from a coworker of a new gas pump opening up nearby and the wait was only five minutes. I woke up the family and ran out to go gas up our three cars and the gas container for our generator. While we were in line, we texted and Tweeted our neighbors. We waited 15 minutes at the most and got gased up for another day. Maybe another week. A week? Yes a week.
We called our notorious Long Island Power Authority, aka LIPA, who told us that even though most of the power has been returned to our particular town, due to complications we might not get restoration until Wednesday morning. That's the estimate for our strip. Ah...so there is a light at the end of the tunnel?? The problem with that information is...we are on target to get hit with a Nor'Easter by Wednesday night. LIPA almost always loses power with these type of storms. So the light at the end of the tunnel might just actually be another lightning bolt that's about to strike our area.
On Facebook I posted a picture of a hamster running in one of those wheels, and the wheel is setup to power a mini generator, which powers a light bulb. I wrote as a caption, "I'm starting to like this idea." Then I posted another picture of a large flashlight and wrote, "This will be the 7th night that I get to say 'Sorry hun, but that is just a flashlight in my pocket." Lastly I posted a picture of a female meteorologist, otherwise known as a weather-woman for a Mexican TV station. She has a great figure and is dressed in a white, low riding waistline pants and a midriff top, exposing her pierced belly button and six pack abdominal muscles. Should I throw in that she's a little busty too? My commentary there was that our local weathermen and weatherwomen won't have to dress like this, this week to get peoples attention.
There are definitely stories of schools, gymnasiums and businesses opening up simply to invite people to come in and charge up all of their electronics. There isn't much doing in the way of sales or customer traffic and most schools are closed. That is, not unless you're selling a generator or a gas can. So overall this is a nice gesture in recognizing that we still need to be able to function with some semblance of our former modern selves. Pretty amazing.
If you're familiar with Oliver Twist, that "Food Glorious Food" song can be substituted with Fuel, Glorious, Fuel...that's all we live for!
Time to recharge!
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