Haven't seen any posts from a few of you guys here today. I hope you and your families are all ok and your homes are not flooded. Just a bit of roof damage up here. A few shingles blew off.

24 hours, no power. I'm just glad we packed everything in the freezer with ice, it kept the food for us. Another day and we'd be dumping half the stuff in the fridge. Not fun at all. Although it was cool to see the living room lit up by all the candles Bev put out. Looked like a cat-house from the 60's! LOL

Good to be back, hope everybody is ok.

John

Purdie,

Glad to hear you are OK. I hope the same is true for our other friends.

Not that you'd know of course.... :D

Glad you are OK

Good to hear you're okay, John... I'll bet the rest haven't got power back yet. I was just a tad off from ground zero for Hurricane Andrew in South Florida... those things aren't any fun at all.

Thanks for the well-wishes guys!

I took a walk just around my block and snapped a few shots. This is a suburb of Reading, Pennsylvania two days after the storm passed. We lost power in my neighborhood for 24 hours. (From 1 am Monday night, until 1am Tuesday night.) There was a fireworks display happening on an electrical pole just down the street from me that was shooting sparks in a halo around the pole outwards to 80/100 feet in all directions. The noise it made sounded just like fireworks too! When it stopped fizzling and pooting, our power went out.

Some photos.

This one is looking roughly south/south-west from my front door. As you can see in the distance, the topography of the region is a series of ridges, hills and valleys, that run almost the length of the state. If you look at a map of PA, you'll see the ridges running north-east/south-west through the lower half of the state. Reading, where I live, is smack dab in the middle of ridge country. I'm surrounded by rolling hills in all directions. I live at the top of one those ridges. The first photo shows the drop-away of the land from my house, the valley in-between and off in the distance, you can see the next ridge.

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/stormdamage2.jpg[/IMG]

Next couple of photos is the work crews cleaning up the neighborhood now that power has been restored. We're some of the lucky ones. People in the next neighborhood over from us have been told it will take from 7 to 10 days to restore their electrical service. Can you imagine?

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/stormdamage3.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/stormdamage4.jpg[/IMG]

This last one was taken in front of my neighbor's house. That tree is a 45 footer with a 5 ft. wide trunk that the wind just tore in half. Lucky it didn't land on the house. Nobody was injured. Just 'property' loss which can be replaced.

[IMG]http://i1143.photobucket.com/albums/n632/PurdieShuffle/stormdamage1.jpg[/IMG]

John

We made it through the storm fine but then lost power after. Just waiting for it to come on at the inlaws who have power...

J!m,

Hope you and all my fellow Connecticutians on the shore endure the power outages and recover from all the surge damage. The wind damage here inland doesn't compare to the flood damage you experienced on the coast. Latest utility reports claim 90% power restoration by next Tuesday.

And did you see that bizarre story of the century-old tree on the New Haven green by Yale University? Apparently when the winds toppled it, it unearthed a human skeleton and a strange, sealed metal box. You couldn't make up creepier Halloween stuff.

Good luck to all affected by this hurricane.

Thanks. We'll manage- it's not the first storm and won't be the last.

I did not hear about the tree in new haven.... I am not surprised but it is strange we did not hear anything about it right up Whitney avenue... Urban myth?

I hope everyone else is managing well under their particular conditions. I think the worst us behind us so now it is just a clean up and rebuild.

> now it is just a clean up and rebuild.

Good way to close this one out. Glad we're all still here to talk about it. A lot of our brothers and sisters didn't make it through the storm.

And... nothing political intended, but, in light of the global increase in destructive storm systems, we all need to take the issue of global warming and our contribution to it, much more seriously than we currently do in this country.

Peace, I'm very glad you're all ok. And the band plays on... band3

John