Hurricane Sandy: Its All About Power
Or lack thereof for a very large number of people. I went searching for a map depicting the areas of NYC that have been affected by power outages and the first link I came up with was a map showing the number of customers without power in the northeast. Usually I include links to things like that but since the graphic didn't give a bottom line figure I converted the data into a table that I could perform arithmetic on and found that the number is over 8 million customers.
I did come up with a map from Con Edison showing the number of customers without power in their service area but it would require a lot of work to figure out exactly how many people customers are affected in each area.
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I also came across a video on YouTube showing the explosions at the power plant in lower Manhattan along the East River posted under a Creative Commons license by TrillianMedia.
After the explosion the building lights to the left of the power plant are absent. This video reminds me of footage from the Gulf War where the correspondents would be standing on their balcony and the night sky behind them would suddenly light up. So it's all pretty much over except for the recovery. The winds have died down and the rains have essentially stopped. Here is the last Public Advisory published by the National Weather Service which shows the location of the storm center shortly after landfall when it was already a post-tropical cyclone.
There has been flooding in the NYC subway tunnels as well as several vehicle tunnels. There is no word on when those facilities will reopen. Surface rail has experienced roadbed failures and even a 25' boat beached on the tracks as well as downed trees that have damaged both catenary and third rail power supply systems and signal controls so all that will need to be repaired before rail service is restored. Bus service was supposed to start running on a Sunday schedule on a fare free basis about an hour ago. There is no word on when they will go to a full weekday schedule.
NYC schools are suspended again on Wednesday. And all public parks are closed until further notice so there is no telling when we will be able to observe again unless we get desperate and go out and stand under a street lamp.
I have not heard anything about whether the evacuation order is still in effect.
I had wanted to go out again this morning to assess the state of the river but my shoes were still soaked from last night so went back to bed.
And Peter reports that as of this morning the crane was still in place. He says the police chased him from in front of his building because he was standing still and looking up.
