Hurricane Frankenstein (Sandy)

[Phantomguy24]

Here on Long Island there's a tree down about every 100 yards or so. At it's peak 90% of the island was without power, and the local power authority said it could be anywhere from 5 days to 2 weeks until where I am gets power back. School has been cancelled all this week and possibly some of next week, although the school has a generator and internet which is where I'm posting from. We were lucky though, Fire Island, the barrier island on the south shore will never be the same, apparently one storm surge was so powerful that it may have cut a new permanent channel through the island.

 

[burtonbraves]

Just got power back tonight, not too much damage around here, we got lucky. Hope everyone out there is doing well!

 

[Jonathan Patten]

"Rejoice" isn't the proper reaction at all, nor was it what I was saying they should do. Any loss of life is a tragic event, and many thousands are grieving because of that loss.

Okay so it'll take billions of dollars to rebuild. It's easy for me to say since it's not my home or business, but consider that all that's been lost there is a couple terrible coasters and some 1970s-era architecture. To me that's not a loss so much as it is an opportunity to build a far more modern, far more successful amusement enterprise. One that will make for a much better experience for its patrons, and contribute much more to the surrounding area and the local economy than what was there before. The New York/New Jersey area doesn't offer much in terms of roller coasters and amusement parks. The regional market is ripe with opportunity, and there's been a ton of innovation in coaster design and manufacturing in the past decade or so.

You watch. Once that place has been rebuilt, it'll be better than what was just destroyed. NY Gov. Cuomo made a similar point in his remarks. It's really the way you gotta look at a disaster like this. There will be many newer and better homes, businesses, transportation systems, boardwalks, etc built out of this destruction. It'll take a lot of hard work, but the area will be much improved for it. Isn't that reason for optimism?




EDIT: Just as a side note, no idea about the homes near the ocean, but no business owner worth his cash register is without insurance to cover this kind of disaster. Between government assistance and insurance money, whatever's been destroyed will eventually be rebuilt and rebuilt better than it was.

Thanks for explaining your comments. I fully see where you're coming from and I agree with you.
As a resident of the area, I respectfully disagree with you for the lack of roller coaster and amusement parks in the area. We have Dorney Park, Hershey Park, and Six Flags: Great Adventure: All three of which are huge in the area.

 

[Fisha695]

"There will be many newer and better homes, businesses, transportation systems, boardwalks, etc built out of this destruction.

I was actually talking about this with some people yesterday. Subways (for example) while they served their place at the time they would be better served today to be replaced with an elevated rail system. An elevated monorail style system with 4 tracks on the wider roads (2 outer ones would be local, 2 center would be express one side of the city to the other or something like that) & obviously only 2 lines on narrower roads. It would prevent flooding of the lines, lessen the need for lighting & ventilation & allow for easier expansion in the future. I know there are plenty of elevated lines outside of Manhattan but expanding them into Manhattan should be the next level of improvement. Pattern it off of the Las Vegas Monorail (and similar ones in other big cities across the globe).

As for the boardwalks, something that I think would be cool (probaly wouldn't happen but would be neat) was instead of using actual wood they would use that compressed composite stuff that a lot of new home decks are being built with. I would figure in the long run it would hold up better then real wood & require less maintenance thus saving money over it's lifespan.

On a more local level I would love to see my local town work on converting to underground wiring. While big storms like this usually don't knock out power to us (this one only did for 2hrs), the ice-storms in the Winter often do as well as people crashing their cars into a pole. While in the perfect world all utility lines everywhere would be buried, in the imperfect world it would be nice to see them buried atleast in every medium-sized & up town. Not only would it prevent outages due to storms & crashes but it would also get rid of most of the poles that people crash into (yes poles would still be needed for street-lights but around here not every pole has a light so we'd be able to get rid of those extra ones) as well as it would have the secondary effect of "beautifying" the towns (let's face it those poles are ugly to look at).

Like I mentioned on the NTG forums so much of our infrastructure across the country is built to "1950s standards" that it's scary, however in-order to update it would take Trillions of Dollars & Millions of Man-Hours thus it's just not gonna happen until it's destroyed and it's forced to be done. I could go on & on but it's after 5am and I'm tired of typing l0l.

 

[31hellomate]

I'm still left in the dark without power (as are many others) and am not expected to get it back until tomorrow at 11PM, but luckily we have a small generator to power the necessities such as our fridge and freezer until then. No running water or heat in the house for the last 3 days, but we're managing, although my house does feel like an ice cube c.c I'm actually typing this at my school being hooking up the PC at home could potentially trip the whole system. Speaking of which, this school week is only 2 days long, as it's our first day back since the storm. Anyways, I've read about and seen images and video of the storm's aftermath and all I can say is wow. I wish for the best to any family who lost any loved ones or possessions as an effect of everything that went on. My thoughts and prayers are with them. Normally, I wouldn't say losing power for what is currently 3 days because of downed trees is lucky, but it's a lot better than obviously losing my home or any loved one Once again, best regards to those people and anyone else affected by Sandy.

 

[WinstonCup426]

As for the boardwalks, something that I think would be cool (probaly wouldn't happen but would be neat) was instead of using actual wood they would use that compressed composite stuff that a lot of new home decks are being built with. I would figure in the long run it would hold up better then real wood & require less maintenance thus saving money over it's lifespan.

I believe my local boardwalk already uses that.

 

[labontefanboy]

Bumping an old thread here, but we made out okay through the storm. Relatively minor tree damage on our property (compared to what I've seen through the surrounding towns) and just 1 or 2 shingles blown off. The worst part of the storm was losing power 7:05 pm on Monday night (the 29th of October) and not getting it back until the 8th of November. JCP&L has got to get their act together.