Sorry about your NJ house and glad things weren't worse.

Are we now able to book cruises with you?

------------------------

Eugene

Sorry to hear about your house Anne, and your delayed return. Glad you found some part time work at BK, I'm sure you will be most successful in your new career. Enjoyed our entirely too brief conversation at HEE HAW on Saturday night.

Good luck with the clean up, repairs and getting the power back on. Thoughts go out to you and Gary.

Anne, I'm so sorry to hear about your NJ home. What a mess but thankful your trees are still standing. Glad the PA home is in good shape....who needs power anyway.

Hang in there....stock up on lots of wine and it will ease your nerves, though may not help your pocket book. Good luck to all !!

Anne, so sorry to hear about your mess maybe Gary will have it all cleaned up and power on before you get home.

I think working at B&K for cruises might be a good think, not a bad place to hang out.

So sad to hear about your mess in NJ We have been wondering about you. From the pics we've seen it sure looks like it could have been worse. I don't envy you all the clean up.

Thanks all! I'm on the accelerated cruise booking training plan. I'd love to book one for you, Eugene, but it's an amazingly complex process. Stick with Linda - she's a booking machine.

Editing to add: I'm starting to get info from our connection with the volunteer groups who worked on rebuilding D'Iberville, MS following Hurricane Katrina. I heaved a sigh of relief to read the eastern shore area near Ocean City, MD had relatively minor flooding and beach erosion. I've got my fingers crossed Olivia came through in relatively good shape.

We have a one square mile town. Those on the east side have not fared as well as we did. These storms, at the micro level, sure are random.

Since it's Halloween, my costume is that of a Damn Yankee Nerd

Cheers, Anne

Anne, sorry to hear about the damage in NJ. Hope you're able to get home soon safe and sound.

Anne: Sorry to hear about your NJ house. NJ was hit hard by Sandy.
It will be a huge PITA, but in time you & Gary will make your place even better.

Best wishes from powerless NY, Doug

Has anyone heard from Olivia?

Anne, I was glad to hear from you, but very sorry to hear about damage to your home. I hope that your power will be restored soon and the repairs will be quick and easy. Hugs!

I'm home and high and dry! The bay has never been further into my yard than a couple of days ago, but thanks to having a generator when I lost power for several hours, no flooding at all inside my home or those of my neighbors. Fortunately, I am somewhat back from the marsh and bay, and didn't give a thought to evacuating, even when it was ordered . We were very lucky here.

Anne, I'm so sorry to hear of your problems at the Jersey Shore. We always know it could be worse, but cleaning up after these things is never fun. Hope you make it home safely and soon!

So happy to hear you made it through OK Olivia!

Thats good news Olivia, so glad you are home and all is well. See you next week.

Anne sorry about your house!!!!! any amount of flooding is awful -

Anne, sorry to hear of your Jersey home's issues. We just heard from our daughter that the city below 40th is a scary place...walking up and down a building stairwell with only a flashlight and the creeps are coming out in the blacked out city. Yuck. The city is a nightmare. There is nothing below 40th..Theatre district is opening tomorrow.

Hi Andi

Very sorry your daughter is caught in the damaged part of New York City. Until the commuter buses and trains are all up and running, it will be tough for her to even get to your home. I hope the power is back up soon for everyone's sake.

Cheers, Anne

Oh Andi - sorry to hear your Daughter is having issues. Sure hope things improve and soon. From everything we see and hear here in DC area, NY is really a mess and really took a hit along with New Jersey shore area.

Glad to hear everyone is safe. Good luck Anne and Gary with the cleanup. As always, you handle life's ups and downs with great humor.

Anne, I was thinking about you and wondering how your NJ house fared in the storm! Good luck with the clean up. Good to hear everything is OK with you, Olivia.

Thanks so much. Like Joanna said - any amount of flooding is awful. Gary's back at it today. The cleanup company has promised to bring on the fire hose sized pumps to get those crawl spaces pumped out and to start liberating the ruined walls and insulation today.

Update from borough hall says more power poles broken or down than expected. New estimate for power is 10+ days. What did I hear from my neighbor in PA that he'd just gotten a generator about the time power was restored? Perhaps it can be relocated to the beach house

Editing to add: As you would expect, the most reliable information is available at Home Depot. Lines for the few open gas stations are miles long. Thankfully, my good friend is the rock star in the paint department. She's sure our contractor will be there this morning, so she'll get him in touch with us. WOO HOO

To quote the movie "Exotic Marigold Hotel" - "Everything will be all right in the end... if it's not all right then it's not yet the end."

Cheers, Anne

"Everything will be all right in the end... if it's not all right then it's not yet the end."

Boy does that sum it all up Anne !!

Oh, Anne. I feel for you guys. Good to hear that Gary has things under control & that you are making progress..... Don says to tell Gary he can bring him our 2 pumps if you need them! Help is on the way! ....good that you can get to your contractor soon. Woo Hoo is right on that.

That sounds so scary, Andi & Doug, your daughter's description of the situation in NYC. Hope this situation gets better AND fast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Olivia! We have been so very concerned about you, too. I can't believe we just had lunch last week with no worries & now this mess. So relieved you & your family are fine & no serious damage.

Been thinking about Lee's son Michael, too. Wondering how he's doing. So glad to hear from those who are safe and hoping the clean-up / recovery goes well.

anne, we were relieved to receive your email the other day and learn that the wheels have been set in motion and efforts are being put forward to get your home safe and liveable once again! please continue to keep us advised. sending our very best to you and gary.

Kim - thanks for thinking of Michael. Luckily he was in London at the time as the foyer area of his building was completely submerged and is without sewer and electricity. He plans to stay there a little longer before heading to Dallas for work. Apart from the refrigerator's contents, his aprartment will be fine as he's on the 8th floor. HIs previous apartment on The Pier was underwater.

Anne: Hope things get better soon.

Lee

WHEW! So, glad to hear that news, Lee! Thank you for letting us know.

I had also wondered about Michael. Happy he missed it all. My son has been stuck in Detroit all week. From one of his tweets it now sounds like he is on his way to Newark. Have no idea how he plans to get home to CT but at least he's now in the area.
Sending good thoughts to all others that have been effected. Those of us in southeast Texas know only too well how hard some of the discomforts of this situation can be. It will get better.

Lee, thanks for easing my mind as I was worried about Michael also. I knew he was in London, but glad to hear things are good with him. Wishing everyone in Sandy's path lots of patience through all of this. I've been thinking about you all so much this week. We were so fortunate in NC with this one.

Anne flew home tonight and handled her misfortune with the grace and "lets solve the problem" attitude that you would expect from Anne in these circumstances. While she was here Dallas had absolutely picture perfect weather it was such a contrast to what was happening up North.

It is good to hear from everyone and to know you are safe. Our thoughts go out to you all as you get your lives back on track.

I'm so glad Anne is finally able to get back home, I'm sure Gary is too.

Wishing good endings to everyone affected by this devestating storm.....afterall, WE ARE FAM-I-LY !!

Well said Marcie.

What a small world!! For those who are interested, while in London, Michael ran into (not literally) Captain Dag and his family. He said he is enjoying Seabourn.

United put on an extra flight to Newark to accommodate those of us who were booked for Mon-Tues-Wed. Discretion being the better part of a fistfight, I opted to check my carry on bag as I visualized 448 standby passengers crowding the gate area vying for the 108 seats available.

Au contraire - they couldn't give those seats away. We perhaps had 60 people on board, and my briefcase looked mightly lonely in a giant overhead bin. They tried to upsell the economy plus seats at the gate for $39/$49 with limited success. Everyone in E+ had an entire row of seats to stretch out, work on Suduko and enjoy a short nap.

We arrived nearly 45 minutes early. I held fire, imagining the following sequence:

Pilot comes on the PA system: "folks, we're at the gate. Can't figure out where those gate agents are. We'll probably sit here for at least 35 minutes before the ground staff is mobilized. 50 feet from an actual early arrival - aaarg! I'm required to tell you "Don't you dare take off your seat belts and keep those carry on items right where you put them for landing." Now - fire up those cell phones and call everyone you can think of - hey, how about this? Here's the number for the gate staff. If one of you manages to get them to pick up the phone, tell 'em to get that jetway hooked up and let us out of here. In the meantime, the rest of you can grouse to whoever you've reached United can manage to get you here on a perfect flight 45 minutes early, but we can't close the 50 foot gap between the plane and the jetway to let you actually arrive early"

Au contraire. Gate staff managed to get the jetway connected in about 5 minutes' time. I mused "what planet am I on now? This has not happened since the days of pre-airline deregulation" as my fellow passengers actually were polite and patiently deplaned. At least the gate agent was complaining to her colleagues "what's with flight xxxx? We don't have it on our schedule. How'd they get here? Was I supposed to let them off?" as I sailed past the gate desk. Whew. At least that tete a tete by the scapegoats of the airline companies, the gate agents, restored my faith I was not entirely imagining this trip.

I headed down to baggage claim and figured I'd grab my bag and then try to get a connection with Gary's cell phone. I still had some empty Suduko puzzles to pass the expected 45 minute wait for Gary to meet me.

Au contraire. He'd arrived at the airport 2 hours early to enjoy a hot meal and relax after two very surreal, busy days. The bags were delivered within 15 minutes of arrival and off we went to PA.

Traffic on I-95 was very light. As reported, one had to stay out of the right lanes as the traffic back-ups approaching the rest stops stretched for literally miles as people waited in line to gas up their cars. What a relief to finally get home, have heat, water and see the birds. They had quite the ordeal while we were gone.

We got up relatively early and I started to toss out all the stuff in the refrigerator here. I had the not so bright idea to use the garbage disposal for emptying jars, bottles, etc. It stopped working in record time. The plumber actually came over right away, letting us know we had the builder grade disposal and it conveniently lacks the feature whereby you can unjam the thing if it gets stuck. OK then - time for a new garbage disposal.

Friends in the storm zoned asked if we could bring up some extra gasoline to keep the generators running. Fortunately, PA has managed to restock after their run on items needed when the power goes down. (side note: we've still got part of the town here without power). All we found were 1 gallon gas cans, so those would have to do. No gas lines here - so we filled the car and headed off to Mo Beach, thinking we were properly provisioned.

This was my second chance to muse "what planet am I on?" as we got closer and closer to our home. Piles upon piles of soaked upholstered furniture, flooring, insulation, massive piles of downed trees, and other damaged goods along everyone's property for trash pick up. It's like you're just not trying if you don't have at least 100 of the contractor sized black garbage bags out front by now. I was prepared to see some of that from my experiences with Hurricane Katrina's recovery; but not nearly in the quantity or the assortment of all the lost items.

Our town has been hit as hard as reported. The only two roads open for car traffic are manned with police/national guard check points. One must provide (a) proof of property ownership in town or (b) proof a property owner wants you there for flood damage restoration or (c) proof you have a contract to resupply the businesses in town or you are not getting in. Period.

The guy in front of us thought he;d sail past the checkpoint while the police were talking to someone leaving the town. A supremely bad idea - the police are exhausted, having been on high alert since Saturday; undoubtedly the driver is exhausted; and no one has much physical or mental bandwidth to stand down from a confrontation. The guy was rude when the police told him in no uncertain terms "HALT" has only one meaning in New Jersey. It escalated in a nanosecond, as he was swiftly booted off the road.

Once we turned into our street, it hit me hard to see all the devastation. We are lucky in that all the homes have roof and structures pretty much intact. For us, it's a remediate then restore path to recovery. I did get further east late in the day, where there are homes which will need to be leveled and entirely rebuilt.

Our house was crawling with eight burly guys with sledge hammers trying to break up the stone flooring over the crawl spaces, cut out the wet drywall, pull out the wet insulation and put all the damaged goods out on the curb. No power, no power tools. We still need to pump out our crawl spaces, and spent much of the day getting that process underway. A general contractor who works with our flood damage contractor came out and made the minor roofing repairs needed to keep further water from entering the house.

The gas shortage is the biggest obstacle right now. We have to have power to pump out the crawl spaces, and that means gasoline. More gas stations had opened from the prior day. Good thing - the ones that opened early are entirely out of gasoline. Police are at the stations and very necessary to keep order while patience runs thin. The town has a 7 to 7 curfew, so we got out of there with about 15 minutes to spare. Weather was cool to cold all day; fortunately, I'd worn my smartwool socks, fleece and gloves to stave off the worst of the chill. Rain was starting to fall as we left. What an insult, considering all the injury to date!!!!!

So .. I have a new short term profession. Gasoline transportation and delivery. We collected gasoline cans from the neighbors, took orders for batteries and headed back to PA. I'll need to ask the neighbors here for a few of those big ice chests and fill them with bagged ice before we leave this morning. Buying out Dunkin Donut's coffee boxes is a must, along with a carton of milk and some sweeteners so people have a hot beverage when we arrive.

For those of you who are in disaster prone areas and have forsworn your land line telephone service - give that a rethink. The cell phone systems are at the breaking point. It doesn't matter which carrier you use up there; after 30 seconds, your call is gonna be dropped. It takes several tries to get past the "we're sorry .. all circuits are busy now .. please try your call again later".

The part we just can't stand to think about is the nor'easter due to hit on Wed and Thursday of this coming week. Proof positive of the old adage we'd hear from our parents when we felt ripped off about something "You know, life is NOT fair".

Cheers, Anne

Oh Anne, sounds like quite an ordeal for sure.

You and Gary are amazing, even with your own house a mess and needing major work, you are taking care of your neighbors and friends and helping them. Your incredible optimistic outlook and sense of humor seems to have survived all this somehow.

I hope and pray that things improve soon and the upcoming weather doesn't make a horrible situation worse.

Your words remind me to be grateful everyday for all the blessings we have and our thoughts and prayers are with you during this time.

We are also thinking of you,Gary, and all of the people in your area. Good luck with the renovations and stay warm.

wow, thinking of you. Being in Oklahoma, we have experience with no electricity for a week or more due to ice storms and tornadoes. But the flooding thing isn't an issue.

Wow, Anne. I wish you all the best. Sounds like you're making the best of a bad situation.

Anne, our hearts are with you. We got off lucky with only 7 days of no power and no damage this year. And right you are about that land line! Let's hope the forecasters are wrong about the nor'easter. Our infrastructures can't handle any more. It was lovely to see , though, all the folks from around the country rallying to help us. Folks can be wonderful. Take care.

Hope things improve soon, Anne! Let us know.

Oh Anne, I am so sad for you, Gary and all the others affected. What a story! I am praying you don't get another storm an that recovery will go well. When do you think you will have power? Please keep us posted on your status. I wish there was something we could do to help.