Forum members storm stories

[Jack's Son]

These reports this morning are much better then feared last night. God bless you all!!

[willysmb44]

HMS Bounty Sinking......

My God, that makes me sick to the stomach looking at that. I’m still can’t get over these morons taking a sailing ship into a hurricane to avoid it being damaged in port. Really, what were these guys thinking?

The Space Shuttle Enterprise has what appareas to be some serious damages at her 'temporary' perch on the USS Interpid. The 'tent' for her has collapsed and the tail seems to be missing some parts.

http://instagram.com/p/RaBr0THoKw/ That's just from what you can see from the outside, God knows what else got damaged. At least she didn't do a half-gainer into the water... This has been a sore subject for space fans, as several museums wanted an oribter and had buildings ready to accept one, and it goes to a museum that has promised buildings for other displays that have never been built (such as the concorde which still sits on a barge). And a purpose-built building for an orbiter in Seattle never got filled with a real one, which would have stood up to this storm easily...

[Teamski]

We lucked out in Delaware for the most part. The Eye passed just North of us right around Wilmington. Everything North got pretty trashed. We got over 8" of rain which is far short of what Irene dumped on us. So, no damage, major flooding here around Dover. The coastal areas got some flooding but no major wind damage. Whew!

 

Pretty stupid of the HMS Bounty crew to even try to sail in the face of a storm like that. Really stupid.

 

-Ski

[m1ashooter]

My brother is just north of Atlantic City. He has no power and is sitting in his yard around the fire pit drinking beer. Phone lines are down and can't reach my elderly parents in Marlboro NJ.

[Bob Hudson]

My God, that makes me sick to the stomach looking at that. I’m still can’t get over these morons taking a sailing ship into a hurricane to avoid it being damaged in port. Really, what were these guys thinking?

 

They headed south on Oct. 25 when we didn't really know that this was going to be the biggest Atlantic cyclone ever and normally they could have gone around it, but really what sunk them - literally - apparently was that they lost power. The winds and seas were not hurricane force where they foundered, but when they lost power they lost their ability to keep the ship pointing into the wind and waves. I doubt they carried a sea anchor big enough to do that without an engine. Once they lose engine power the ship lays broadside to the waves and they can start to hammer it. They started taking on water at the rate of of two feet per hour and that makes it sounds like the planks got loosened up. We'll have to wait until th CG inquiry, but it may also be that the planks opened up first and the rising bilge water killed the engine, but I did see somewhere that the pumps stopped working when the engine quit (although it's hard to imagine she had pumps which could actually keep up with that amount of flooding). They had 18-foot seas and 40-mile-per-hour winds (not hurricane conditions) and with an engine they should have been able to ride it out.

 

Again, the details are sketchy, but they could not have anticipated a once in a lifetime event like Sandy and combined with the power failure, it sounds like bad luck and maybe not bad seamanship took her down. The skipper was lost at sea and I'm sure the first mate and other crew are doing a lot of "If only we'd..." but they also know the sea claims lives and vessels despite our best efforts.

 

My first thoughts upon hearing about the Bounty were about the Albatross and the Pride of Baltimore, tall ships that went under with loss of life when hit by white squalls in the Atlantic in the 1960's and 1980's. As with the captain of the Bounty, their skippers were not morons. Bounty captain Robin Walbridge was selected by the Navy to train the crew of the USS Constitution for its first outing in 116 years and was guest Captain/Adviser for that.

[Bob Hudson]

He has no power and is sitting in his yard around the fire pit drinking beer.

 

I have a cousin who does that all day even when there is power.

[RustyCanteen]

 

They headed south on Oct. 25 when we didn't really know that this was going to be the biggest Atlantic cyclone ever and normally they could have gone around it, but really what sunk them - literally - apparently was that they lost power. The winds and seas were not hurricane force where they foundered, but when they lost power they lost their ability to keep the ship pointing into the wind and waves. I doubt they carried a sea anchor big enough to do that without an engine. Once they lose engine power the ship lays broadside to the waves and they can start to hammer it. They started taking on water at the rate of of two feet per hour and that makes it sounds like the planks got loosened up. We'll have to wait until th CG inquiry, but it may also be that the planks opened up first and the rising bilge water killed the engine, but I did see somewhere that the pumps stopped working when the engine quit (although it's hard to imagine she had pumps which could actually keep up with that amount of flooding). They had 18-foot seas and 40-mile-per-hour winds (not hurricane conditions) and with an engine they should have been able to ride it out.

 

Again, the details are sketchy, but they could not have anticipated a once in a lifetime event like Sandy and combined with the power failure, it sounds like bad luck and maybe not bad seamanship took her down. The skipper was lost at sea and I'm sure the first mate and other crew are doing a lot of "If only we'd..." but they also know the sea claims lives and vessels despite our best efforts.

 

My first thoughts upon hearing about the Bounty were about the Albatross and the Pride of Baltimore, tall ships that went under with loss of life when hit by white squalls in the Atlantic in the 1960's and 1980's. As with the captain of the Bounty, their skippers were not morons. Bounty captain Robin Walbridge was selected by the Navy to train the crew of the USS Constitution for its first outing in 116 years and was guest Captain/Adviser for that.

 

I completely agree,

 

They gave the Bounty a fighting chance with what they could.

 

RC

[Sabrejet]

Lots of "live" storm coverage on BBC News Channel. Scary to see places in NYC that I'm very familiar with taking such a beating! Terrible scenes of devastation in Queens too. Patches....hope you're ok?! And as for the Jersey shore...what can I say but hang in there and God bless you all!

 

Ian

[graham]

Hang in there. Our thoughts are with you.

[patches]

Lots of "live" storm coverage on BBC News Channel. Scary to see places in NYC that I'm very familiar with taking such a beating! Terrible scenes of devastation in Queens too. Patches....hope you're ok?! And as for the Jersey shore...what can I say but hang in there and God bless you all!

 

Ian

 

Thank's for your concern Ian, but nothing happened here in my area, nada, just like I mentioned last night, looked around this morning and saw only a tree or two down, and from what I seen these did not hit any parked cars, plus branches, alot of leaves though, Oh 1/4 of a facade above a Rite Aid phamacy came down, not that bad at all, and despite the heavy rain my basement did not flood, it allways floods through the foundation walls at the rear when it rains, strange, I guess it was the wind that just keep up a constant blowing of the water so it would not collect, both on the roof, and in the backyard, strange.

[chuckie]

I hope everyone is okay and rode the storm out without to many problems! God bless everyone.

[Sabrejet]

Thank's for your concern Ian, but nothing happened here in my area, nada, just like I mentioned last night, looked around this morning and saw only a tree or two down, and from what I seen these did not hit any parked cars, plus branches, alot of leaves though, Oh 1/4 of a facade above a Rite Aid phamacy came down, not that bad at all, and despite the heavy rain my basement did not flood, it allways floods through the foundation walls at the rear when it rains, strange, I guess it was the wind that just keep up a constant blowing of the water so it would not collect, both on the roof, and in the backyard, strange.

 

That's good to hear Kevin. We saw a whole neighbourhood in Queen's gutted by fire on the tv news...hence my question!

[Wharfmaster]

My God, that makes me sick to the stomach looking at that. I’m still can’t get over these morons taking a sailing ship into a hurricane to avoid it being damaged in port. Really, what were these guys thinking?

The Space Shuttle Enterprise has what appareas to be some serious damages at her 'temporary' perch on the USS Interpid. The 'tent' for her has collapsed and the tail seems to be missing some parts.

http://instagram.com/p/RaBr0THoKw/ That's just from what you can see from the outside, God knows what else got damaged. At least she didn't do a half-gainer into the water... This has been a sore subject for space fans, as several museums wanted an oribter and had buildings ready to accept one, and it goes to a museum that has promised buildings for other displays that have never been built (such as the concorde which still sits on a barge). And a purpose-built building for an orbiter in Seattle never got filled with a real one, which would have stood up to this storm easily...

 

The folks at the Museum of Flight in Seattle as well as space fans everywhere are going to be very upset with the damage to this historic space shuttle.

 

 

W

[Sabrejet]

I stood on the flight deck of the Intrepid just over a year ago in one of the worst thunderstorms to hit NYC in recent memory. The rain was coming in sideways! That was pretty bad....I dread to think what it must've been like in the past 24 hrs!!

[patches]

I stood on the flight deck of the Intrepid just over a year ago in one of the worst thunderstorms to hit NYC in recent memory. The rain was coming in sideways! That was pretty bad....I dread to think what it must've been like in the past 24 hrs!!

 

 

You don't get that sort of storms in the British Isles do you, just Winter Storms, like a North Sea-North Atlantic equivent of what they call here on the North Atlantic seaboard of Canada and America a Nor,Easter, correct?

[Sabrejet]

 

 

You don't get that sort of storms in the British Isles do you, just Winter Storms, like a North Sea-North Atlantic equivent of what they call here on the North Atlantic seaboard of Canada and America a Nor,Easter, correct?

 

Historically, we don't get the extremes of weather which you experience in the US. That said, this year, because of a re-positioning of the Jet Stream way up in the stratosphere, the UK experienced an exceptionally wet Spring/early summer with extensive flooding in low-lying parts of the country. An average month's worth of rain fell in a day in some parts, but nothing compared with what Sandy dumped on the US.

[hawkdriver]

We've been stood down.

[Devious6]

We lost power about 48 hours ago - still running on our back-up generator system. It is a 12kW system that has a quiet engine and runs off our 1000gal propane tank buried in the yard. The system powers our well, septic system, heating system, water heater, refrigerators, freezer, cooktop, some lights, a TV and my computer/modem.

 

We moved my in-laws into our place on Monday afternoon before the storm started, just in case. My father in law is confined to a wheelchair. Their house is on the same power grid as ours so theirs has no power now.

 

No real damage to our property - some downed branches and limbs but nothing bad. We were very fortunate and I am so glad I opted to get the back-up generator when we built the house.

[Garandomatic]

Gotta say I am thankful my Huguenot forefathers hated the crossing so much that they moved deep inland and to high ground. Hope everybody gets back on their feet as soon as possible.

[m1ashooter]

My brother is still sitting in his backyard around the fire drinking beer with no power. I can text him but not call him. He made it today to my parents. They are in fine condition. He reports power lines and power poles down everywhere. It will be interesting to see the rebuilding effort on the barrier islands and the code enforcement. You can't build on the Texas coast in our area unless you build on up above the storm surge height. A lot of the really damaged homes sat almost on sea level. I've learned that if you live by the water you can expect to get very wet.

[normaninvasion]

Here on Long Island over 900,000 without power. Barrier island communities washed out in the Atlantic. Gas stations running dry. Nat. Guard helping out. Its a mess.Spent two days bailing out the basement in my rental house, trying to save my boiler.

[normaninvasion]

Just an update. As of today still over 500,000 without power on Long Island, about half the pop. People have run out of food. Gas is in short supply. Police have been set up at gas stations to maintain order. Peoples frustration levels are peaking. Some coastal towns have been completly destroyed. Our area is used to hurricaines and bad nor'easters, this has been the worst storm in recent memory

[plick27]

Just getting a chance to get some interweb at the office and seeing the pictures and video for the first time. Hope all you guys down the shore are all o.k. Cant believe the devastation. its unsettling to see the pictures and video. Had a couple family members ride it out 4 houses from the beach about 4 miles north of seaside(silverbeach) and the didnt even get water in the house. just up the road(mantaloking) the island totally washed out and made a new inlet. craziness! We got slammed pretty hard up here in the "country" too. Able to get out for the first time today and its pretty weird to say the least. Its like driving an obstacle course around trees and telephone poles. Some spots look like a tornado rolled through. A couple cops I know say most of their shifts are spent policing the gas stations and the lines. I've witnessed 2 fist fights already. It's like freakin Mad Max. People are losing their minds already. Personally had little damage. Tree took out half the deck and the hot tub but everybody is o.k. No power and the power co. says best case is 2-3 weeks for us to get it back. got my genny fired up and getting gas in Pennsylvania so we're good to go for the duration. again all the best to you guys from the bay down to a/c cant imagine being there for that.

 

out till next week

 

RJ

[plick27]

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/11/before_and_after_sandy_photos.html#incart_maj-story-1

 

Really out this time, gotta gas up.

[Old Marine]

 

In NE Philadelphia, it wasn't so bad, lost power for a day and had no internet or cable for 4 days. Other than that no real disasters or injuries that I have heard of. I survived the storm of the century just fine but I couldn't escape stupid. I live in a big old stone and brick 4 story apartment building. The genius building superintendent bolted and chained a 10 pound barbell weight to a 3 foot square piece of plywood. The idea was to cover the chimney with the plywood to prevent rain water from flooding in, the weight was supposed to hold it in place. All he succeeded in doing was making a huge, deadly flying plywood kite with a 10 pound steel tail. The 70+ MPH winds gave the plywood just enough lift to get the weight over the edge of the 4 story building and drop it 4 stories down straight through my windshield, avoidable stupidity. The weight smashed the windshield, and the weight, board and chain bounced along the hood and fender.

 

All in all it's pretty minor, it's a car and it can be fixed, that's what insurance companies are for. I am just amazed and still shaking my head at the unbridled stupidity of that stunt. Was it Ron White that said "you can't fix stupid"?

 

I hope that all the others with real problems can recover quickly.

 

 

Dennis