OT - Anyone planning to evacuate from Irene?

There was a one-armed kid in Wildwood, nicknamed Flipper, who surfed all winter long -- often by himself.

Road Trip!

Seriously Ed, I hope Irene makes a sharp right turn and never makes it up the coast.

--Winston

(...)

I've had extremely good luck with them. I have the great-grandfather of this unit:

I've run my 5-1/4" circular saw, my Makita angle grinder and my refrigerator during a power outage with it from my car battery (One at a time with engine running). No problemo. It Just Works.

No, but the 40 pounds of striped bass and bluefish is a temptation.

Yup. Silicon Gulch during the Loma Prieta shaker was pretty congested.

Prepared is good.

--Winston

I remember that. Vaguely. Oh! Earthquakes. Right.

I concur, doctor.

Think: Lots of little shakers and no more big'uns.

--Winston

There are kids at the inlet beach all year long. I have to take the baby back to college (evacuation by tuition), so I won't be able to go down and see the rollers breaking on Third Avenue. I am one of the Original Settlers, and I haven't seen a _real_ hurricane around here since Donna in 1960. It will be interesting to see how the new construction on the beach holds up- even more interesting how my house a mile away from the beach holds up.

Kevin Gallimore

I can tell you it's too late to buy a generator anywhere within 3 hours of the Jersey-PA border. I had a generator I've been trying to sell for several months - nothing wrong with it and it was priced right; there just wasn't any demand. With the storm coming, I posted it again Thursday night in the Harrisburg, PA craigslist since it's been about 6 weeks since the last posting. I've been bombarded with emails and phone calls from people as far away as NJ, MD, and the DC area. Most are 3+ hours away. I sold it this evening to a young couple from the Allentown area who drove 2 hours to get here. Some of the callers sounded really desperate. I sold it for what I had in it, but I probably could have raised the price and still sold it. I spent a lot of time returning calls and emails this evening so that people knew where they stood in line in case the purchaser didn't show. (I had made the arrangements this AM for him to see it and held it for him to arrive at 8 PM this evening. )

RWL

On Fri, 26 Aug 2011 12:00:41 -0400, "Ed Huntress"

OK Lets hear the story. I remember Hazel too - 1954 IIRC. It took down an apple tree in our front yard. We were living outside Philly in Phoenixville then. Were you in Bloom during that one? You would have been pretty young since you're not much older than me.

RWL

I'm in NY, out on the island, in a Category 1 surge area. Almost everything south of Merrick Road/Montauk Highway is going to be evacuated, especially the barrier beaches, so access to the surf will be limited.

Cool. I'll have to add that to my acquisition list/book.

?

I can imagine.

You betcha! I need to rotate some boxes of granola bars. Amazingly enough, the Wally World Great Value bars are healthier for you than most of the farkin' "health food company" bars, and about half the price, too. Well, until "they" come out with the FesStool Bar, at only $126.83 a box.

It's not really much of a story. Yes, I was 6 at the time, but we were living in West Trenton, NJ, a half-mile from the Delaware River. The river came up to within 50' of our property line during the storm.

Hazel was a freakish storm -- it came up inland, through PA and NY State, but kept its wind velocity, all the way up to Toronto.

I was sitting in our bay window watching house shutters, pieces of siding, and tons of paper and trash sail by when my mother made me get away from the window. Shortly we heard a crash from our neighbor's house. A big for-sale sign that had been in front of a house up the street came sailing along like Odd Job's bowler and sliced right through the bay window of our neighbor's house, knocking out some of the window framework and landing in the back of their living room. It could have taken someone's head right off.

The memory stuck with me and, when on land, I don't go outside when the wind exceeds a steady 40 mph or so, ever since.

Aha. We have mandatory evacuations all up the Jersey Shore now. Gov. Christie, in his charming way, said "Get the hell out, now! It's too late to work on your tan!

He has such a way with words...

7:50 AM, it's dead calm outside, humid and cloudy, but with no rain. You can hear crickets. Seagulls just flew over, headed north. 'Looks like a nice Saturday morning for fishing...

Thanks, Winston. The velocity is down but the path still looks really bad. We have around 20 hours to go, from the predictions.

I checked my big freezer and see that I'd overestimated the fish supply. It's maybe 20 - 30 pounds now. We've been eating fish but I haven't been fishing.

The blues are ready for crab bait, anyway. You can't freeze those suckers more than a few weeks before they lose their flavor. Stripers, on the other hand, will keep.

They are. The main arteries in south Jersey, and the Garden State Parkway up to about where I am, have been 100% contra-flow since late yesterday.

In other words, six- and eight-lane highways have been turned into one-way streets -- away from the coast.

Doesn't anyone have hurricane parties any more? Common in Florida. Plenty of drink and food to party on. Of course houses in Florida are supposed to be built to withstand a 150 mph wind. Trees crashing down and flying debree are what you have to watch out for. I been through a number of hurricanes in Florida.

If the wind direction doesn't shift and the barometer keeps falling the eye is coming right at you. If the wind starts to shift and the barometer remains steady the eye is moving parallel to you. Of course the worst place is not the eye but if the eye passes to the near left of you where the strongest winds are and also the longest substained winds are.

John

That earthquake shook one of my lathes so that it was tapering a couple of thousandths per foot and I had a job on Thursday that required holding a thousandth in a seven inch bore and turn. I wondered at first why it was tapering so much and then realized that it got shook by the quake. It normally cut straight within a tenth or two for the length of the lathe.

I guess next month we get the locusts.

John

Your biggest problem is the large trees around your house. The ground gets soggy and the roots pull up and over they go. If you stay sleep in the bathtub. :) unless you have one of those flimsy fiberglass tubs then sleep under your bed.

John

I didn't think there was any farm country left in NJ.

the news media has at least three days of easy reporting and hype to fill their timeslots. Usual for a storm is trees down, wires dangling, roofs damaged and local flooding. Some stupid fools will be hurt being outside in it, hope it only the stupid newspeople standing outside with a mike in hand. They act like this is a class 5 hurricane which it is not. The biggest problem is the ocean waves on the beach front property and barrier islands but if you want to live near the ocean you have to live with it and expect a wave here and there.

I'm out in PA between the hills so if we get any wind at all it will be minor. Rain will not be a problem here since we are not in a real low area. The worst thing that will happen is that it will ruin the fruit crop and I love peaches.

John

Yeah, we had a big one form next door go through our roof during a nor'easter about 15 years ago.

Our tub is cast iron, but I'd have to cut my legs off at the knees to sleep in it. And I'd squash my wife. d8-)

It's now looking like we're in for 50 mph. Not too bad.

55 to 75 here, with gusts to 90. But the surge could be a bitch. The man hasn't come to my door yet to harass me, wife and kids left to stay with relatives.