Oh, the days that we’ve had.
As you’ve probably heard, the northeast and mid-Atlantic United States was hit on Monday by Hurricane Sandy, which had already done extensive damage in the Caribbean, particularly in Haiti. My office was closed in anticipation of the storm, but the weather wasn’t particularly bad here for most of Monday, kind of rainy and very windy. I spent most of the day reading through Kaleidotrope submissions, very nearly getting caught up…on August’s submissions. (That still leaves September’s.) However, the storm absolutely picked up with a vengeance in the evening.
We lost power around two o’clock in the afternoon, and the storm raged all night, but honestly, it could have been a lot worse. The little tree in the front yard, only a couple of years old, had one whole bough sheared off in the wind. And we lost a fair amount of siding on the one side of the house. But with all the horror stories coming in — Breezy Point in Queens, for example, not quite an hour’s drive from here, was decimated by flooding and fire — and even the damage some of our neighbors have suffered…well, it could have been worse. No one here, and no one nearby, and no one we know was badly hurt. I haven’t heard from everyone at work, since I haven’t been to work — more on that below — but my immediate co-workers and boss are okay. Yeah, it could have been worse.
My office, like a whole lot of Manhattan, has been closed all week. We’re facing network connectivity issues that might close it again tomorrow, but even if it’s open there’s almost no way I’ll be getting in. Mass transit is struggling to crawl back, and the Long Island Railroad isn’t close to running on my line again. And even if driving in wasn’t a terrible option under ideal circumstances, because so many people have started using it as their only option, most ways into the city will be requiring three or more passengers. I’m pretty much stuck.
I do wish I’d brought my laptop home with me — any other week, when I was expecting to stay home on Tuesday, I would have — but it can’t be helped. Unless the MTA and LIRR announce some spectacular overnight repair work tomorrow, I’ll be doing as much work as I can from right here.
Which I maybe can do, since the power came back on unexpectedly tonight. We’re still worried it will go out at any minute — that’s been known to happen, LIPA will be the first (or thereabouts) to admit — but it’s been holding steady on this side of the block for the past few hours. Heat, lights, wifi — tonight we live like kings!
We’ll see what happens tomorrow. I really do want to get back to work.
