Are We Having Fun Yet?

Post-Hurricane Sandy

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 02:45:47 GMT

For us, the recent hurricane became a non-issue this morning. The sun came up through overcast skies and we found we were still dry, still had electricity and there was no damage to our property.

The ban on non-essential driving was lifted by about 11am, the Metro system was running again by 2pm and nearly all businesses, schools and gov't offices will resume regular business Wednesday morning.

For me, the past 48 hours was even more normal that all of that. Since I regularly work from home, I do my thing so long as I have electricity and a working Internet connection. kent4str had Monday & Tuesday off as his office was closed so he was able to enjoy some quality television time while I kept the Internet in working order.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to drive to the data center. I know the major roads are just fine, but I have some questions about the back roads I use to avoid paying road tolls. I also have no idea how many vehicles to expect; some folks may need extra time from the office to work on their homes while others may not have a working office to go to yet. Then again, since all have been away for two days already, perhaps every worker out there is chomping at the bit to get back to the office to address their backlog. We'll see tomorrow.

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Hurricane Sandy Update

Tue, 30 Oct 2012 01:31:04 GMT

The rain started yesterday evening, around 9pm. It was relatively light but constant until the early morning when the wind picked up and the rain became heavier.

By the late afternoon, the wind was gusting very strongly and the rain was coming down in buckets. I expected the power to fail at any moment, but now, at 9:25pm, it's still on. We were prepared for an outage in any case: all our toys are charged, food is stocked, batteries & candles are on hand, etc.. Our electric utility is so incredibly unreliable, we've had this drill many times in the past few years.

Schools and gov't offices --federal, state & local-- were closed today and will be again tomorrow. Needless to say, there's no square dancing for us until Thursday now.

My data center is still up and running so I haven't needed to leave my basement computer cave. Indeed, if kent4str wasn't upstairs (his office tracks the US Patent office), today would be a work day like any other.

The heavy rains and winds will continue until about 6am tomorrow morning. At that point, the rains will continue but the wind should die back considerably.

It's going to take a while for everything to catch up again to normal. With all of the major airports in the north-east and mid-atlantic areas closed, the network of flights is an utter mess. Friends in Europe are trapped at various cities there for the next few days until they can get flights back to the US. I have no clue which intersections don't have working traffic lights or which roads may have been flooded out and/or closed because of debris.

Fortunately, we have Facebook, Twitter, the TV and various web sites to update our friends & family who aren't in the immediate splash zone: that's saved me making a tonne of extra telephone calls. With a little luck, all will be well again by Thursday for most of us in the greater DC area.

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Post-Hurricane Irene

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 13:05:53 GMT

Executive summary: nothing to see here.

The storm has come & gone. While we still have light showers and overcast skies, the wind is non-existent. Indeed, we barely got more than a few gusts all night and while it rained steadily from 4pm to the present, it was never torrential or excessive.

The electricity flickered a few times, mostly around 2am or so. The satellite tv signal was intermittent but never died completely for more than a few seconds.

We're the exception though: there are large swathes of the greater DC area (mostly the east and south-east of DC) which are without electricity and our county gov't is warning of over 100 intersections without working traffic lights. The transit system is starting back up on a regular Sunday scheduled this morning.

In all, I hope NYC fares as well as we did.

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