ironpeddler
Ye Old Newbie
- Joined
- Apr 8, 2008
- Messages
- 6,655
Hey guys, we finally got our power back after a 44 hour outage and Comcast got our Internet connection back in service a few hours ago.
I have to tell you all, this was one of the most intense experiences of my life. The storm started out like so many Nor'easters common in our area when you factor in we live so close to the beach. We get 50mph gusts a few times a year and don't bat an eyelash at them. When Sandy approached, we went into our normal routine of tying stuff down and bringing small stuff in our garage...went to the food store and doubled up on the essentials...loaded the fridge with beer...filled the cars with gas and hunkered down knowing we were prepared. Monday started out very windy and you could see the bands of clouds coming in like airplanes lined up to land at an airport...one after another in line in a circular like pattern. At that point it wasn't even raining and our power started to flicker on & off every few minutes...that's when we realized this was something different than our normal hurricane like last years Irene.
We hustled upstairs to shower because all the waterfront homes in our area have wells and pumps...no power, no water. So we both showered and then I filled both bathtubs with water to use to flush the toilets once the power went out for good. We executed the plan we spoke about perfectly. Got out the flashlights, batteries, auxiliary batteries for our cell phones, our radio to stay in contact with the outside world....wait, where's the freakin' radio? My daughter took it to the beach one day and never returned it! My fault for not checking beforehand. Oh well. Around 10am we lost cable TV, Internet, and phones...pretty early considering the storm was so far away. Then the power went out an hour later...this was when we realized this was no ordinary storm. Our township came around to our area to make sure everyone was prepared for the storm and said we weren't on the list of neighborhoods marked for evacuation...which I agreed with. The weather stations said we were going to get sustained winds of about 55 to 65mph with gusted up to MAYBE 75mph. We were confident we were out of harms way because usually the storm surge hits us a day or so later by the time the water works its way to the back lagoons We live 15 miles South of the Manasquan Inlet and about 25+ mile North of the Barnegat Inlet so the tidal waters take some time to reach us...we've seen this time and time again. But not this time...
By 3pm the rains were coming down sideways and the winds were gusting at approximately 75mph with sustained winds at 45 to 50mph. It looked like dusk already it as so dark. I drove up to the end of my block to check out the bay and I was shocked, we had 6 to 8ft white caps crashing over the bulkheads of the bayfront houses!...maybe a 100 yards of visibility at most. I hung out a minute to snap a few pictures as the wind was shaking my son's Crown Vic pretty good when the wind was gusting.
I then headed over to my girlfriend Cynthia's house who lives a 1/4 mile away on the lagoon that I was just at the mouth of...the entrance so to say. I got to her house and told her what I saw and showed her the pictures and she was almost in disbelief...we walked to the back of her house and the lagoon was flat!...a little wind blown, but way calmer than during the aforementioned Nor'easters...go figure? I hung out there because she had power AND cable TV yet she only lives 17 houses up the block from me. A few hours later my son calls me as he's bored with no TV and was hungry, so he came over and I made sandwiches from some chicken cutlets I fried that morning. Now at this point the storm is going pretty good but seemed to die down a bit and we lost cable and Internet but still had power...so off we go to the end of my block to check out the bay again and to show Anthony & Cynthia what it looked like...
We couldn't believe it...way more visibility...no 6 to 8ft white caps...we could see across the opening of the lagoon area. At that point my cell phone rings and it's my daughter, she's all freaked out because she has no power and my ex left her alone without telling her where she was going. At this time, this is a windy rainstorm and of no threat. We were getting updates on our cell phones and they were saying the worst may be over as they downgraded the hurricane to a tropical storm. We head back to Cynthia's house and Anthony and I decide to go pick up my daughter who lives about 15 minutes away. I called the Toms River PD to make sure it was OK to be driving and they said it was as long as we made it quick. As we were driving we saw downed trees across the roads, some minor detours, and big puddles here and there and the roads were covered with leaves. On our way back, Tom Larsen calls me...B.B.S. to you CPers...to see whats shakin' here in New Jersey. I describe what we saw and how calm it got. Tom whips into Google-foo mode and discovers a 7pm NOA update that stated we were in the eye of the storm and that's why it's so calm. At that point we get an update on my son's phone that said something to the effect that the storm was turning into a post tropical cyclone and the winds were going to be getting up to 85mph or more at around 9pm it would hit land and we are 1 mile from the beach....and it's 8pm or so. As we hustle home I thanked Tom for the info, hung up and drove like mad...all the way the winds were picking up in force. We get there and all was safe and sound. We decide to watch a movie with my laptop plugged into Cynthia's flat screen TV, popped some popcorn, and we were getting ready to relax a bit. Right then Cynthia decides she wants to smoke a cigarette with my daughter in tow on the back deck...wind is howling but no rain is falling. They're talking outside when my daughter Erika takes a walk down to the dock and when she does, she steps in water...it's cresting the bulkhead. As the water is rising her walkway starts to float away and Anthony runs out to grab them before they wind up in the lagoon.
At this point the wind has REALLY picked up and the rain was hurting when it hit us. Once that was done, Cynthia decides she want to go to her neighbor's house and rescue their jet ski what is winterized and on blocks next to their dock. WTF! While my kids are trying to talk some sense into her to not risk her life for a 400lb watercraft, my cell phone rings and it's Tom checking on us. I fill him in on the goings on and hears us talking to Cynthia...it's almost comical as Tom was feeding me info...'The flying debris will be like motor fire'....'are you f'in crazy?, you may get blown into the lagoon and we're not going in after you!'...what a crazy scene as we're trying to stop the good samaritan. I hang up with Tom and then the power goes out! Now we're all talking as she comes back in the house and says it's too windy to save the Seadoo...DUH...and we decide to head to my house as we have a fireplace and more food. Cynthia says to head over and she will follow in a few minutes as she wanted to button up her house.
We drive down the street and as we get closer to my house, the water starts spilling into our street. We get in the house and I call Cynthia to say that we will go back to get her because her Mazda RX8 won't make it as it sits very low to the ground. Now you have to understand, water come up on our street during high tides with a full moon almost every month...exactly the same circumstances as Monday night. We don't have sewer drains for the streets, the storm drains drain into the lagoons...so as the water in the lagoons, rise they back up into the streets...common occurrence. Anthony and I head back to get her and as we walk outside, the water is at least 2 feet higher than when we got there...in a matter of 5 minutes. It turns out the water had crested the bulkheads of the bay behind our house and was flooding everything! Now we can't get out. I run in the house and tell Cynthia to drop everything and get out of our neighborhood as fast as she can because the water is like a tsunami wave. She stays on the phone as she heads outside to her car and the dock walkways that Anthony stacked up 15 minutes prior are now in her driveway hitting her car. She jumps over them, get in the car, starts it up and starts to freak out as the water is getting deeper by the second and is getting in her car with the door closed. She backs out as I'm telling her to rev the engine high so it won't stall...it's a 6 speed...she does that, gets up about 3 houses up the street and the car stalls out. I'm on the phone as she's crying and trying to open the car door....and as she does, water comes rushing in! Anthony and I are about to head out to swim up the block when I hear the voice of a neighbor who saw all this and came running through the water with his 3 sons coming to her rescue...in the middle of the storm they happen to be on their front porch checking out the weather. Thank God! They pushed her car up into their driveway out of the water and took her in their house...I almost had a heart attack listening to all this. She hangs up as she goes inside and we head back outside our house to see what is happening...the water is now 4 feet deeper than 5 minutes prior! It came in like a freight train at an unbelievable rate like I've never seen before. I'm getting chills as I'm typing this because it was the most terrifying thought not knowing when the water would stop.
By midnight high tide, the water was over 9 feet above the normal high tide mark and hammered everyone's cars and homes. We were lucky and just lost our cars and everything in our garage as our house sits up at a higher elevation than the older homes in the area. Everyone misjudged this storm, the county, the township, and us. They kept saying that the worst would be North of us as the storm made the left hand turn into New Jersey. I was up all night checking to see if the water would get into our house and it only made it to the 3rd step of our front porch. By daybreak, the water started to recede as low tide approached. This is what we saw...
At it's highest point during the night, the water was just up to the bottom of the rear glass of our Blazer...
In the lagoon area, everyone's dock disappeared because the water was so high.
That's about 5 feet above the usual high tide.
We're thankful that we all made it unscathed and none the worst for wear. When we finally heard from the First Responders they told us what had happened to the barrier island across the bay from us...total devastation. The ocean punched rivers through the houses and land right to the bay. Seaside Heights boardwalk was destroyed and the pier collapsed into the ocean and the roller coaster now sits in the surf. What we call home will never be the same again...bridges collapsed, houses set on fire from natural gas explosions that burned out of control and the ashes were swept away like they never existed. Every waterfront home along the coast was either destroyed or beyond repair. Every marina in our area...dozens of them...had boats floating into the roads and highways...some crashing into houses and businesses and now they're just laying there, littering the roads and parking lots like leaves off a tree. We're hanging in there in spite of what's all around us...but kinda numb at the same time as we go through the motions, acting like things are getting back to normal. But it will be years before that happens, if it ever really does.
If this was a category 1 storm, I can't even imagine what the folks in New Orleans went through with Katrina.
When all is set and done, I'm still here to tell you all about it...and that's a good thing.
I have to tell you all, this was one of the most intense experiences of my life. The storm started out like so many Nor'easters common in our area when you factor in we live so close to the beach. We get 50mph gusts a few times a year and don't bat an eyelash at them. When Sandy approached, we went into our normal routine of tying stuff down and bringing small stuff in our garage...went to the food store and doubled up on the essentials...loaded the fridge with beer...filled the cars with gas and hunkered down knowing we were prepared. Monday started out very windy and you could see the bands of clouds coming in like airplanes lined up to land at an airport...one after another in line in a circular like pattern. At that point it wasn't even raining and our power started to flicker on & off every few minutes...that's when we realized this was something different than our normal hurricane like last years Irene.
We hustled upstairs to shower because all the waterfront homes in our area have wells and pumps...no power, no water. So we both showered and then I filled both bathtubs with water to use to flush the toilets once the power went out for good. We executed the plan we spoke about perfectly. Got out the flashlights, batteries, auxiliary batteries for our cell phones, our radio to stay in contact with the outside world....wait, where's the freakin' radio? My daughter took it to the beach one day and never returned it! My fault for not checking beforehand. Oh well. Around 10am we lost cable TV, Internet, and phones...pretty early considering the storm was so far away. Then the power went out an hour later...this was when we realized this was no ordinary storm. Our township came around to our area to make sure everyone was prepared for the storm and said we weren't on the list of neighborhoods marked for evacuation...which I agreed with. The weather stations said we were going to get sustained winds of about 55 to 65mph with gusted up to MAYBE 75mph. We were confident we were out of harms way because usually the storm surge hits us a day or so later by the time the water works its way to the back lagoons We live 15 miles South of the Manasquan Inlet and about 25+ mile North of the Barnegat Inlet so the tidal waters take some time to reach us...we've seen this time and time again. But not this time...
By 3pm the rains were coming down sideways and the winds were gusting at approximately 75mph with sustained winds at 45 to 50mph. It looked like dusk already it as so dark. I drove up to the end of my block to check out the bay and I was shocked, we had 6 to 8ft white caps crashing over the bulkheads of the bayfront houses!...maybe a 100 yards of visibility at most. I hung out a minute to snap a few pictures as the wind was shaking my son's Crown Vic pretty good when the wind was gusting.
I then headed over to my girlfriend Cynthia's house who lives a 1/4 mile away on the lagoon that I was just at the mouth of...the entrance so to say. I got to her house and told her what I saw and showed her the pictures and she was almost in disbelief...we walked to the back of her house and the lagoon was flat!...a little wind blown, but way calmer than during the aforementioned Nor'easters...go figure? I hung out there because she had power AND cable TV yet she only lives 17 houses up the block from me. A few hours later my son calls me as he's bored with no TV and was hungry, so he came over and I made sandwiches from some chicken cutlets I fried that morning. Now at this point the storm is going pretty good but seemed to die down a bit and we lost cable and Internet but still had power...so off we go to the end of my block to check out the bay again and to show Anthony & Cynthia what it looked like...
We couldn't believe it...way more visibility...no 6 to 8ft white caps...we could see across the opening of the lagoon area. At that point my cell phone rings and it's my daughter, she's all freaked out because she has no power and my ex left her alone without telling her where she was going. At this time, this is a windy rainstorm and of no threat. We were getting updates on our cell phones and they were saying the worst may be over as they downgraded the hurricane to a tropical storm. We head back to Cynthia's house and Anthony and I decide to go pick up my daughter who lives about 15 minutes away. I called the Toms River PD to make sure it was OK to be driving and they said it was as long as we made it quick. As we were driving we saw downed trees across the roads, some minor detours, and big puddles here and there and the roads were covered with leaves. On our way back, Tom Larsen calls me...B.B.S. to you CPers...to see whats shakin' here in New Jersey. I describe what we saw and how calm it got. Tom whips into Google-foo mode and discovers a 7pm NOA update that stated we were in the eye of the storm and that's why it's so calm. At that point we get an update on my son's phone that said something to the effect that the storm was turning into a post tropical cyclone and the winds were going to be getting up to 85mph or more at around 9pm it would hit land and we are 1 mile from the beach....and it's 8pm or so. As we hustle home I thanked Tom for the info, hung up and drove like mad...all the way the winds were picking up in force. We get there and all was safe and sound. We decide to watch a movie with my laptop plugged into Cynthia's flat screen TV, popped some popcorn, and we were getting ready to relax a bit. Right then Cynthia decides she wants to smoke a cigarette with my daughter in tow on the back deck...wind is howling but no rain is falling. They're talking outside when my daughter Erika takes a walk down to the dock and when she does, she steps in water...it's cresting the bulkhead. As the water is rising her walkway starts to float away and Anthony runs out to grab them before they wind up in the lagoon.
At this point the wind has REALLY picked up and the rain was hurting when it hit us. Once that was done, Cynthia decides she want to go to her neighbor's house and rescue their jet ski what is winterized and on blocks next to their dock. WTF! While my kids are trying to talk some sense into her to not risk her life for a 400lb watercraft, my cell phone rings and it's Tom checking on us. I fill him in on the goings on and hears us talking to Cynthia...it's almost comical as Tom was feeding me info...'The flying debris will be like motor fire'....'are you f'in crazy?, you may get blown into the lagoon and we're not going in after you!'...what a crazy scene as we're trying to stop the good samaritan. I hang up with Tom and then the power goes out! Now we're all talking as she comes back in the house and says it's too windy to save the Seadoo...DUH...and we decide to head to my house as we have a fireplace and more food. Cynthia says to head over and she will follow in a few minutes as she wanted to button up her house.
We drive down the street and as we get closer to my house, the water starts spilling into our street. We get in the house and I call Cynthia to say that we will go back to get her because her Mazda RX8 won't make it as it sits very low to the ground. Now you have to understand, water come up on our street during high tides with a full moon almost every month...exactly the same circumstances as Monday night. We don't have sewer drains for the streets, the storm drains drain into the lagoons...so as the water in the lagoons, rise they back up into the streets...common occurrence. Anthony and I head back to get her and as we walk outside, the water is at least 2 feet higher than when we got there...in a matter of 5 minutes. It turns out the water had crested the bulkheads of the bay behind our house and was flooding everything! Now we can't get out. I run in the house and tell Cynthia to drop everything and get out of our neighborhood as fast as she can because the water is like a tsunami wave. She stays on the phone as she heads outside to her car and the dock walkways that Anthony stacked up 15 minutes prior are now in her driveway hitting her car. She jumps over them, get in the car, starts it up and starts to freak out as the water is getting deeper by the second and is getting in her car with the door closed. She backs out as I'm telling her to rev the engine high so it won't stall...it's a 6 speed...she does that, gets up about 3 houses up the street and the car stalls out. I'm on the phone as she's crying and trying to open the car door....and as she does, water comes rushing in! Anthony and I are about to head out to swim up the block when I hear the voice of a neighbor who saw all this and came running through the water with his 3 sons coming to her rescue...in the middle of the storm they happen to be on their front porch checking out the weather. Thank God! They pushed her car up into their driveway out of the water and took her in their house...I almost had a heart attack listening to all this. She hangs up as she goes inside and we head back outside our house to see what is happening...the water is now 4 feet deeper than 5 minutes prior! It came in like a freight train at an unbelievable rate like I've never seen before. I'm getting chills as I'm typing this because it was the most terrifying thought not knowing when the water would stop.
By midnight high tide, the water was over 9 feet above the normal high tide mark and hammered everyone's cars and homes. We were lucky and just lost our cars and everything in our garage as our house sits up at a higher elevation than the older homes in the area. Everyone misjudged this storm, the county, the township, and us. They kept saying that the worst would be North of us as the storm made the left hand turn into New Jersey. I was up all night checking to see if the water would get into our house and it only made it to the 3rd step of our front porch. By daybreak, the water started to recede as low tide approached. This is what we saw...
At it's highest point during the night, the water was just up to the bottom of the rear glass of our Blazer...
In the lagoon area, everyone's dock disappeared because the water was so high.
That's about 5 feet above the usual high tide.
We're thankful that we all made it unscathed and none the worst for wear. When we finally heard from the First Responders they told us what had happened to the barrier island across the bay from us...total devastation. The ocean punched rivers through the houses and land right to the bay. Seaside Heights boardwalk was destroyed and the pier collapsed into the ocean and the roller coaster now sits in the surf. What we call home will never be the same again...bridges collapsed, houses set on fire from natural gas explosions that burned out of control and the ashes were swept away like they never existed. Every waterfront home along the coast was either destroyed or beyond repair. Every marina in our area...dozens of them...had boats floating into the roads and highways...some crashing into houses and businesses and now they're just laying there, littering the roads and parking lots like leaves off a tree. We're hanging in there in spite of what's all around us...but kinda numb at the same time as we go through the motions, acting like things are getting back to normal. But it will be years before that happens, if it ever really does.
If this was a category 1 storm, I can't even imagine what the folks in New Orleans went through with Katrina.
When all is set and done, I'm still here to tell you all about it...and that's a good thing.
