After Sandy

So, for those of you outside the Northeast, you probably heard that we had a small issue last week, in the form of a combination of storms monikered "Superstorm Sandy". What Sandy really was was a very late season hurricane, combined with a very high tide, a uniquely unlucky phase of the moon and two other early winter storms which can in from the Midwest and Canada.

In combination, these storms were quite devastating to the east coast - the entire coastline of NJ is essentially gone, as is much of the South Shore of Long Island. This is better described in images here than I could possibly do it. Where we live in westchester, things were not as bad because the storm had so little rain, but the very high wind did knock down hundreds of trees and power lines.
I consider myself extraordinarily lucky, as we never lost power here during the storm and still have it now - although I think our hot water/gas is currently out for maybe a week or two, and this could be bad if we have a Nor'easter next week like we are supposed. I was not even up here during the storm, I had arranged to spend the week at the NIH (clearly I did not go - the NIH was actually closed for much of the week), so I had stopped in NJ on Sunday night and ended up spending 2 days with Aviva's parents and grandparents. Aviva rode out the storm very easily up here with warmth and power, surrounded by a number of our friends - all of whom were probably attracted by her wonderful banana bread. 

I also feel lucky because all of my friends family are healthy and safe,  though some of them are still without power, water or sewage and many have not been to work or even away from their houses for a week or two.

This storm could provide a very interesting backdrop for a discussion of climate change, importance of infrastructure, the role of government, etc ... and many of those types of stories are coming out now or will come out in the near future. While I might return to my thoughts on those subjects later, for now, I just wanted to share some images of what things still look like in Scarsdale - a very wealthy and well-cared for suburb of NYC, 5 days after the storm. To me, the amount of damage still evident, and the number of people still without power (walking around today it was almost hard to hear anything there were so many portable generators going) is striking, and strong evidence of what a devastating storm Sandy actually was.

These are images from the Greenacres area of Scarsdale, just south of White Plains, NY.