I'm back! With power and heat! It's been a cold 5 days. My area is still largely without power. I can go two blocks over and people are still using generators. The lines for gas are amazingly long. Easily a couple hours wait. Hubby and I take short drives in the area to see progress but are sticking to home for now. I'm an hour north of Seaside Heights and the destruction is so bad, you have to pinch yourself to believe it's real. Everywhere we go it's trees on power lines, poles snapped in two or three pieces. And no traffic lights are working yet, and no cops, you just drive on through. Stores are mostly closed or on generator power.

Lisa, so happy to hear that you have power and heat. I can't imagine what it must be like where you are. So glad you and your family are safe.

My thoughts and prayers are with all of you and with those still suffering. Glad to see you all checking in!

Thanks BethL!

I am hoping others in my area get their power and heat soon too.

Lots of trees came down in our area of CT, with some flooding on the shoreline, which didn't affect us directly. Our power went out Monday about 4pm and returned last night - best shower ever! We spent the daylight hours of the storm sitting on the porch drinking Champagne and watching things blow around, and waving at our neighbours who were doing the same. Once it was dark we huddled inside - Champagne, candlelight, and an enormous storm, how romantic! - and despaired not being able to easily check the news. The ATT cell tower came down pretty early into the storm so one of our phones was totally out of commission for the first couple days, where was I when Verizon became so reliable?!

These were taken just down the street from us, Monday afternoon - before the storm really got started.

My mom in NJ is really thankful to the management of their building (and so am I!). It's a senior housing complex that has emergency generators so I wasn't too concerned about the hurricane. However, the generators started running out of fuel yesterday and the management was considering asking the tenants to leave. They got a delivery of fuel, and the management company also brought in new water heaters today (the old one failed) and worked all day to get them going. So now they not only have heat (which was on since Wed. or Thur.) but also hot water. The residents have also been getting free hot food 2-3 times a day.

The pharmacy where she gets her prescriptions was running 4 hrs/day off a generator beginning Thursday (no lights, just enough power to run their computer and probably the refrigerators) so she was able to pick up refills of her medications.

There were large catfish and bass all around their building after the storm - the river crested as the high tide and the hurricane winds forced ocean water inland, and the fish were stranded on land.

DS has spent most of last few days with a friend in the dorm because the campus has power while his off-campus house still has no electricity. There is no school but he was working at his part-time job (hospital coffee shop) because the hospital is up and running.

Girl X, are you at the shoreline? I used to live in Branford, have seen some scary photos form there.

I hadn't really been that aware of what was going on with the storm as I haven't been watching the news recently. This thread has prompted me to catch up with some of the news on the internet.
Thinking of you all

Hello everyone,
Sorry for the complete radio silence. We are on the south shore of Long Island, and we just got (partial) power back last night! Still no heat or hot water, though we did a lot better than many people 'round these parts.

Alas, we lost a lot of clothes! Any advice for fashionable recovery wear? Lol

Hope everyone else is doing well!

- Micheline

Yikes, Micheline - how is your house? Glad that you are safe and finally have power restored. That's a long time to have no heat, especially at this time of year. We lost power for 5 days due to a December windstorm a few years ago, and for a week before that we had the heat turned off after a rat crawled into the heat vents and died (believe me, the smell when the heat came on was SO awful that a frigid house was preferable!) and it took ages to feel like everything had thawed.

Our long island families got their power back finally! It took 12 days.

I heard from family that the south shore of LI got hit really hard, micheline. And then in the aftermath, simple things like trying to buy gas were nightmares (is that still the case?). I'm very sorry, but glad you and your family are okay.