After the Storm: This Was Not a Tempest in a Teapot

I do not want to hear that the worry about Irene was hype. It wasn't.
I do not want to hear that closing the subways and evacuating was stupid. It wasn't.

A "mere" tropical storm means the winds weren't 70 mph, but, in this case, "merely" 65 mph.
Subway stations were flooded.
The meat packing district got a foot of water.
Nine people died. If none of them were in NYC, that means we had a combination of good luck and good planning.

There are cases where preparing for the worst case scenario is essential. This was one of them.

So, we have a lot of canned goods. You know, I can deal. We had to toss a lot of food after the fire in our building, so I looked at that as restocking if we were spared the worst. I picked up some supplies I didn't think we'd need for this storm, like emergency sleeping bags that are compressed to about the size of my small fist, because I want them in a jump bag. I picked up water purification tablets Just In Case. If we do not have to use them, I am delighted.

I bought two unusual flashlights, both because I wanted more in the house and because these are really good, really cool, and really portable. They were also discounted, bless EMS. We will get use out of them, even if we are fortunate enough never to have an emergency.

All the people bitching about the "hype" are being idiots. This is the worst thing about our good fortune, that people may not believe it when a more serious storm hits. Make no mistake: we were not just lucky. A lot of people put a lot of serious thought into planning to minimize the damage of this storm, and if things go back to what we consider normal quickly, it will be due to their plans and to the hard work of those implementing them.

I understand being annoyed if your plans were cancelled because of the storm and the preparations for it. It's fine to be annoyed that you couldn't do what you planned. It's carrying that one step further that infuriates me.

For those who are annoyed that we didn't have a worse storm because their plans were cancelled for nothing, stick it up your ass hard, and spin on it. How dare you wish a hurricane on my city? Do you comprehend that you are saying, "Damn, I wish that a major city had been hit by a catastrophic hurricane, doing some real structural damage that left people without power and vital services, that maybe caused serious injuries and deaths, so that it meant something that my plans were cancelled"? How dare you wish that on me and mine?

The Three Most Annoying Things from Hurricane Irene

Note that these are the three most annoying things to me. Others either have different mileage or did not get as lucky. Note, too, that this presumes a rapid return to NYC normality, which is by no means assured.

3. We pulled the library / study air conditioner in. I may feel like this is #2, but honestly, it's near the end of summer, and we can cope. It came back in smoothly, and mnemex was able to close the window. We did this because water was leaking under the air conditioner. The other air conditioners stayed in place.

2. Six minutes of the Netflix DVD of Hot Fuzz were not accessible. We were watching it to keep entertained during the storm, and at a climactic point, the DVD froze. We could go past the bad part. We found a summary online, reading just what we missed, and we picked up from there. The deleted scenes gave us a clearer idea of some of what we missed. But, even if we catch it again, in a better copy, we can't really experience the thrill we'd have gotten if we saw the movie all the way through the first time. I'm okay with this being the second most annoying thing.

1. See previous entry.

Why the Subways Were Shut Down

This is why.

Edit: Correction from redaxe:

You do know that this pic was taken several years ago, during a water main break, right?

Not that it invalidates shutting down the subways; it's likely that this or something like it was happening at low-lying stations yesterday.

[I did not -- thanks for the correction!]

Red Hook After the Storm

Here's what Red Hook looks like. Thanks to agrumer for the link.

More Irene Pictures

Check out the ninth shot here. Thanks to marcmagus for the link.