Hurricane Sandy ... are you taking precautions? (Danvers, Florida: waterpark, insurance, hotel)

[konfetka]

Originally Posted by ogre

Lost power here in Natick about 5:00PM Monday, and didn't get it back until a few minutes after 11:00 last night.

Went for a walk yesterday and looked around at some of the damage. Wires down in several locations. One intersection had a whole tangle of crisscrossing wires down, as far as two or three houses down both streets in every direction from the intersection. Yesterday afternoon when I walked past there, they had simply blocked off the streets, with no one even there working at that point, while I saw repair crews out at several other locations. NStar's websites says 2.5 percent of Natick's residents are still without power, and probably won't have it back until tomorrow night. I wonder whether this involved that whole tangle of wires at that one intersection.

Saw a large old tree fully uprooted. It was in a front yard, right next to the house, so it's fortunate that it had fallen in the other direction. An entire end of that house would almost certainly have been crushed if the tree had fallen in the opposite direction. Across the street from me, an entire side of the neighbors' stockade fence was torn free and knocked down.

It still seemed no worse than the occasional serious nor'easter I've experienced. Although, I did notice that when the wind wasn't gusting there was still a low, steady roar. When I saw the damage that had occurred around here and considered the fact that this was just the edge of the storm, with no power in the house and so no news updates on the tube, I could only imagine how bad it must have been down in NJ, NYC, and now I know it was as bad as I had figured. We got lucky here, to be only on the edge of the storm. Glad you all seem to have come through basically okay.

Seems like you got more tree damage over there. Not sure if you had more wind inland than the North Shore, or is it because we have less trees...

I was keeping an eye on my only tree all day, and told my kids not sit there, even though I had some faith in my old stone walls. Then I found out two kids got crushed by a tree in their living room in NY...

[bigfatturkey]

when the winds were the strongest....did you folks feel your house shaking? i didn't board up the windows but they were rattling so badly (casement windows and sliders that are in very good condition) that i decided to board the top floor ones just to be safe. our house is very tall/open with no blockage from other houses so we could feel the full force of the wind. when i was lying on my bed on the top floor....it shook. i just wanna know if that's normal and if there's anything to do to "secure" the house more firmly? we just got the house and moved in so we are trying to improve on it. sandy gave us some experiences.....and a shaking house is not exactly what i feel very comfortable with :P i'm considering hurricane shutters too.

[Beachcomber4]

Originally Posted by bigfatturkey

when the winds were the strongest....did you folks feel your house shaking? i didn't board up the windows but they were rattling so badly (casement windows and sliders that are in very good condition) that i decided to board the top floor ones just to be safe. our house is very tall/open with no blockage from other houses so we could feel the full force of the wind. when i was lying on my bed on the top floor....it shook. i just wanna know if that's normal and if there's anything to do to "secure" the house more firmly? we just got the house and moved in so we are trying to improve on it. sandy gave us some experiences.....and a shaking house is not exactly what i feel very comfortable with :P i'm considering hurricane shutters too.

Are you on stilts (By the way just realized that when Tamizluv wrote "What Happened BFT, that BFT meant Big Fat Turkey LOL) ? It's actually not a bad thing for the house to have some "give" in high winds and some are even designed that way- homes on stilts particularly. Better to allow for movement than to fully resist the wind.

PS Congratulations on your new home!!!

[bigfatturkey]

Originally Posted by Beachcomber4

Are you on stilts (By the way just realized that when Tamizluv wrote "What Happened BFT, that BFT meant Big Fat Turkey LOL) ? It's actually not a bad thing for the house to have some "give" in high winds and some are even designed that way- homes on stilts particularly. Better to allow for movement than to fully resist the wind.

PS Congratulations on your new home!!!

no i'm not on stilts...those houses freak me out. mine is just a regular cape (actually a raised cape!). the house is from the 80s so i figured it must've been through numerous storms and it's still standing here i'm used to brick/concrete houses so to have the house rattling and shaking like during sandy is a little nerve wrecking

[tamiznluv]

Originally Posted by bigfatturkey

no i'm not on stilts...those houses freak me out. mine is just a regular cape (actually a raised cape!). the house is from the 80s so i figured it must've been through numerous storms and it's still standing here i'm used to brick/concrete houses so to have the house rattling and shaking like during sandy is a little nerve wrecking

I'm no expert but I think as Beachcomber said, a little "give" to a house is okay, bft. My house is 58 yo and it HAS withstood many storms. Some of the windows rattled away through the whole thing. It shook a few times too and it's only one floor. I live on a corner so I get more wind than the neighbors who have houses on both sides. It's also on the very top of a hill so there's usually always wind to begin with!

konfetka, you should have heard the roar of the ocean combined with the roar of the wind! On a "normal" day sometimes the ocean sounds like a frieght train. The sound can come right through the walls on a bad day.

[bigfatturkey]

I sure hope it's nothing. I might really check out the hurricane shutter options. My previous rental had hurricane shutters cos its right on water and very exposed to weather elements. I feel much safer with those down during those heavy storms, nor'easters, hurricanes...and much easier than putting up plywood over the windows before each and every storm.

[ogre]

Originally Posted by konfetka

Seems like you got more tree damage over there. Not sure if you had more wind inland than the North Shore, or is it because we have less trees...

I was keeping an eye on my only tree all day, and told my kids not sit there, even though I had some faith in my old stone walls. Then I found out two kids got crushed by a tree in their living room in NY...

I checked Monday's weather data for a few towns around the metro area. It does appear that we had stronger winds west of Boston than you had. Maybe that could have been caused by variations in the ways local landscapes interacted with the storm, but judging by the few towns for which I checked, it appears that the difference may be mostly that the farther to the southwest you were, the farther in the direction of the storm's center you were. Maybe even up here where we were more or less on the storm's fringe, being thirty miles or so closer to the center made some difference in terms of wind speed.

Sad about the kids you talk about in your last sentence. That kind of possibility is exactly why I was glad that the uprooted tree I saw while walking around on Tuesday had fallen away from that house.

[DawnMTL]

No matter how bad things got for you, this puts things in perspective:

Update: 2 NYC boys found dead, swept away by storm

Awful, heartbreaking story.

[konfetka]

Originally Posted by tamiznluv

I'm no expert but I think as Beachcomber said, a little "give" to a house is okay, bft. My house is 58 yo and it HAS withstood many storms. Some of the windows rattled away through the whole thing. It shook a few times too and it's only one floor. I live on a corner so I get more wind than the neighbors who have houses on both sides. It's also on the very top of a hill so there's usually always wind to begin with!

konfetka, you should have heard the roar of the ocean combined with the roar of the wind! On a "normal" day sometimes the ocean sounds like a frieght train. The sound can come right through the walls on a bad day.

As much as I love being near the ocean, I am now thankfully closer to the border with Wenham, so I don't hear the ocean here at all. Plus I was surprised at how I didn't hear much of the wind either. May be this house will be a keeper after all, considering I have now been through my first earthquake and a hurricane (it used to be a carriage house or a guest house to an old mansion, which has been demolished to make room for our street, and was built to last.)

I actually missed the sound of the ocean, which used to put me to sleep on Revere Beach. Then I was having recurring tsunami dreams, and had a dream of Revere Beach being flooded, and some houses moved off of their foundations. When I started seeing more reporters on our street during storms, and the front patio getting flooded, I started to get a nagging feeling of wanting to get the ... away from the ocean. That was 2 years ago.

[konfetka]

Originally Posted by ogre

I checked Monday's weather data for a few towns around the metro area. It does appear that we had stronger winds west of Boston than you had. Maybe that could have been caused by variations in the ways local landscapes interacted with the storm, but judging by the few towns for which I checked, it appears that the difference may be mostly that the farther to the southwest you were, the farther in the direction of the storm's center you were. Maybe even up here where we were more or less on the storm's fringe, being thirty miles or so closer to the center made some difference in terms of wind speed.

Sad about the kids you talk about in your last sentence. That kind of possibility is exactly why I was glad that the uprooted tree I saw while walking around on Tuesday had fallen away from that house.

I think you are right, I think that the storm landing further south made a little bit of difference for us up here. A lot of times we do get different weather up here vs. the west or south of Boston.