Fly Reporting From the Middle of Hurricane Sandy

The lights are out here in Princeton, NJ. They’ve been out for about 2 hours now, forcing me to fire up the back up generator. It’s truly a vagabond thing to do in this day and age, when there are natural gas (whole house) generators on the market. I was going to have my electrician install one this summer, but opted to hold off for next year.

Without a back up generator, my sump pumps would fail. From what I was told, this very house flooded not once, but twice!, during last year’s storm. The previous owner installed another sump pump for good measure, which might come in hand this time around.

There are trees down everywhere, none on my property that I know of.

A very good friend of mine had to evacuate his home on Staten Island, tough son of a bitch who’d only evacuate if his life was on the line. Apparently the ocean made its way to his front porch and streamed right in. He is without flood insurance.

I have enough gasoline to power my generator for at least two days. There are two back up batteries, just in case, with 8 hour of life span attached, just in case.

So far, so good. But it’s getting fucking dicey as fuck out here. The Deacon of Death is upon me, in the most ironic way possible.

NOTE: Isn’t this fun, from a government conspiracy theory point of view?

Previous Posts by The Fly

75 Responses to Fly Reporting From the Middle of Hurricane Sandy

OzarkHillbilly says:

You may not accept trading advice, but I’d advise making an effort to conserve your gasoline until you have a better idea of how long you’ll need it. Not that you haven’t considered it already, but my experience has been that the power can stay out longer in these situations than most people realize. Stay safe; I’ll have my fingers crossed for you.

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'merica says:

As long as you have your apple products above water, you’ll be fine.

I just moved, was trying to set up internet and managed to get the only technically retarded asian guy to hook it up. My unborn child knows more tech than this guy.

Anyway, I get home from my new job, throw my pants on the floor in favor of some comfortable sweatpants, cuz that’s what I do, and our puppy pug, Larry, walks over, sniffs the crotch of my pants and urinates all over like he owns this house. I farted on him to show the little shit who’s boss.

Stay safe!

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Anton says:

Power went out about 2pm and just came back on here. It’s like the power company wanted to atone for poor performance last year.

May power return to your house before that nasty beer you drink gets warm.

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Metalleg says:

This storm is nasty. I will be buying a generator in short order after what I call Fuckingstorm.

Trees down everywhere, no power, rusty water coming from the faucet. Good thing I bought 80 lbs of ice today. Should last me a day or two.

My aunt is trapped on the second floor of her house because the water is creeping onto the second floor. First floor filled up to the ceiling. I can’t leave my house because there are trees blocking my driveway and strewn all over the streets.

I can’t believe the electric companies haven’t figured out a way to prevent as many power outages as there are.

Good luck all.

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Po Pimp says:

I can’t leave my house because there are trees blocking my driveway and strewn all over the streets.

Have you considered walking?

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Frog says:

If he’s going to an area where the first floors of buildings are submerged to their ceilings, it sounds like he might need to travel there in a boat.

In Louisiana, where my relatives live, that’s what people did– travel around in boats rescuing people from their roofs & such.

Hard to imagine what you folks in the storm area are going through. We see pictures & read descriptions. But of course the picture is incomplete for those of us who are not actually there.

Good luck to you, Metalleg. It sounds like a lot of the water has subsided now, so hopefully your aunt is okay.

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Anton says:

Just read that NYU hospital generator has failed. NICU is nine flights up.

Relative to that, everything else is just an inconvenience.

Best to the kids, parents and healthcare workers.

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Ultramarine1 says:

Stay strong, Dr. Fly, and the rest of you fighting the storm. As long as the storm doesn’t linger and continue the flooding then you should be OK. I hope power is restored soon.

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JakeGint says:

#6 got near-flooded out as well, in the West Village. He’s quite pissed. New born still with he and his wifey.

I’ll say a prayer for all y’all.

Move further South next time, perhaps?

_____________

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Po Pimp says:

Moving further west would be more practical. States like NC and SC get fucked up by hurricanes all the time. States like MO and OK, not so much. You just have to be weary of the tornaders over yonder.

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Po Pimp says:

One caveat though; who the hell wants to live in OK or MO?

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Jakegint says:

Just the very borders of those states get effed. Majority of the pops in those states are in major cities inland.

You can always drive to the beach, and Greenville SC is steps from the mountains (as is Charlotte and Asheville, NC).

______

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heaterman says:

Or you guys could just wise up and move to Michigan. (anywhere but the SouthEast corner)
Very little tornadic activity, no earthquakes, muted winds, even from this storm, the occasional heavy snow storm/blizzard, no hurricanes. Add in beautiful, peaceful country, gorgeous fall weather and color, the Great Lakes and countless rivers, ponds, lakes and you have a recipe for a great place to live, raise a family and work. Why….we even have high speed internets here in the northwoods of the state! As an added bonus, people are nice here in the “flyover” part of the world and firearms + various explosives are viewed as entertainment rather than “weapons”.

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Jakegint says:

Yes, as long as you stay out of the
ball of the thumb” part of the mitten. Detroit is a wasteland.

Love Traverse City, especially in the summer. Not many more beautiful places.

______

Reply
ottnott says:

Sandy is not a conspiracy of the us government, but the Feds clearly brought the storm upon us.

It is no coincidence that Sandy developed shortly after the NASA robot attacked and damaged the surface of Mars with lasers.

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Woodshedder says:

Hope all is well blogfather. Don’t go trying to run a chain saw unless you know how and you surely want proper protective gear. Best to you and the family.

Reply
JV says:

Refilling that stupid son of a bitch every 8 to 12 hours was always a delight. My Honda gen seemed to sip less petro. SHF got taken out at $34 fitting nicely in your new healthy buying plan.

Reply
The Fly says:

Power is back up. All is well.

The gods thank you for your prayers.

Reply
Frog says:

Watching Sandy, Ignoring Climate Change

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/10/watching-hurricane-sandy-ignoring-climate-change.html?mbid=gnep&google_editors_picks=true

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DMG says:

You’re a muppet.

Joe Bastardi, on the other hand, is not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bastardi

Bastardi is skeptical of human-induced global warming.[9][10] He asserts that the world was likely warmer in the 1930s than today, that human contribution of carbon dioxide is too small to have any effect, and warming is caused by sun spots and exchange with warmer oceans.[11] He frequently argues in his columns that extreme weather events occur occasionally and that there is not enough evidence to state that such events are unusual. For example, commenting on major storms and flooding in 2006 Bastardi stated:

I have no doubt this may be some value to human-induced global warming, but there are a lot of things that are happening now that have happened before.
—Joe Bastardi, Larry King Live[12]
Bastardi has also argued that carbon dioxide cannot cause global warming, because this would violate the first law of thermodynamics,[11] despite the fact that carbon dioxide traps atmospheric heat through the greenhouse effect and is not claimed to heat the atmosphere directly.[13] He expects that over the next 30 years, the global average temperature will return to levels seen in the late-1970s due to a so-called “triple-crown of cooling” comprising oceanic temperature cycles, solar radiation cycles, and volcanism.[9]

Bastardi frequently comments on global warming during guest appearances on Fox News and Fox Business Network.[13]

Bastardi’s employer, Weatherbell Analytics, provides long range weather forecasting for energy companies.[13]

There is much more skepticism of global warming among meteorologists (such as Bastardi) than among climate scientists. This is attributed to different training and experience. Weather models are quite different than climate models, and many meteorologists have not studied climate science. Nevertheless, the American Meteorological Society has affirmed the science of global warming.[14]

Bastardi believes in the cyclical theory of climate and uses this in his long-range forecasts. He predicts two major hurricanes to hit the Northeastern United States by 2015, one of which has already come to pass as hurricane Sandy made landfall in New Jersey in late October of 2012 as the most powerful storm to hit the region in recorded history. He also predicts that with the PDO (Pacific decadal oscillation) cold and the AMO (Atlantic multidecadal oscillation) turning colder, the global temperature will fall to 1970 levels within the next 20-30 years.

Bastardi, on a recent interview in Fox news incorrectly cited Le Chetelier’s Principle as:

“…it simply says that any system in distress, physical, chemical, or in the atmosphere, tries to return to a normalcy,”

He then uses this to back his belief that global temperatures shall soon level off. However, Le Chetelier’s Principle does not say what he says it says. What Le Chetelier’s Principle truly states is:

“If a chemical system at equilibrium experiences a change in concentration, temperature, volume, or partial pressure, then the equilibrium shifts to counteract the imposed change and a new equilibrium is established.”

It can be argued that his statement is incorrect, however. First, because the atmosphere is not a chemical system, therefore the principle does not describe it. Second, the atmosphere is not in equilibrium as the sun constantly injects energy to it. And lastly, even if the climate can be described by this principle, he misquotes Le Chetelier’s Principle. The system does not return to normalcy, it creates a new equilibrium, or a new “normal”.

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Brainwashed Republican says:

All lies. You should be tried for treason for spreading such unproven propaganda. Human consumption doesn’t negatively affect the environment. Now lets go find an ice berg to drill.

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Mr. Cain Thaler says:

I will give you three basic reasons to ignore climate alarmism:

1) data samples extend back 100 years. Maybe a quarter of those are accurate measurements

2) long term weather trends are measured in centuries. Our data, even in its entirety, is really at most a half an oscillation. Go wild every kind of analysis you can think of. Switch to Taylor series next – you’re still wrong.

3) the correlations between the models and the data, assuming the data is even useful, are statistically insignificant. I love the scary looking lines showing exponential growth in carbon output…right up until I read the left hand of the graph and find out it’s being measure in micrograms and realizing that on any other scale, it would appear flat. The exponential component in equation is basically being multiplied by 0…

4) the suggestions of ‘curing’ climate change – assuming it is being driven by human behavior – are CONVENIENTLY the same repackaged shit environmentalists and oddball groups like PETA have been pushing for decades now. Stop enjoying yourself, stop improving the lives of your families, stop eating meat, reuse your toilette bowl cleaner containers to hold your drinking water…etc etc etc. How wonderful, that the cure to the worlds ills are always the same, whether it’s global warming, global cooling, ozone holes, climate change, water pollution, overpopulation…I’d say the lack of imagination shows the drivers of this propaganda bus don’t know what they’re talking about and are inventing problems to solve their cures, and not the other way around.

5) even if time shows us climate change, exactly as it has been described, is real and can be prevented by altering human behavior, do I care? No. The impact of glaciers melting doesn’t really change that much, and besides, why are you so afraid of change? If you’re one of twelve people living on an island 1 ft above sealevel, sorry champ. I’d rather pay to relocate those people than plunge the planet into mass poverity and 13th century living conditions so that some dumbass tribal community that hasn’t invented “moving” yet can keep on trucking like they have been for the past 500 years.

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DMG says:

More importantly, the dumb bitch who wrote the article for the New Yorker, graduated with a degree in Literature. After that, she spent a year in school in Germany, then started work as a reporter for the New York Times.
A REAL FUCKING EXPERT, I TELL YA.
And dickwad is talking about Fox news.

The crazy Bastardi was carrying around tool that measures wind speed as a teenager. Also graduated college with a degree in meteorology.

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Mr. Cain Thaler says:

The idea you can even measure an “average Earth year temperature” is fucking retarded too.

The Earth is a gigantic sphere. According to Koeppen’s Climate Classification, there are 13 (probably more) distinct classifications of climate. Each of these climates can experience between 1-4 acknowledged seasons driven by solar positioning and radiation levels.

Moreover, there are extreme consequences of wind current phenomenon that come into play here. And precipitation carried by those currents. And all that before factoring in the effects of wildlife and people.

And these climate dickwads have conveniently managed to compact all that (which by itself is probably inadequate) into a single data point that just happens to cascade slightly higher over time?

Oh yeah sure absolutely. Let me just get you a $100 billion budget…

Frankly, if you aren’t using Complex Analysis to generate a climate model (which is the MINIMUM requirement for describing LINEAR behavior on the surface of a non-flat finite object, you can go get fucked.

If the name Riemann means nothing to you, your opinion means nothing to me. Because your “globe” models are horseshit.

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Frog says:

We’ll have to agree toi disagree on who is a muppet here.

If U R one of those folks who actually believes that Fox News is fair and balanced, there is nothing more I can say.

“There is much more skepticism of global warming among meteorologists (such as Bastardi) than among climate scientists. This is attributed to different training and experience. ”

You bet it is due to experience– the experience of working for & being paid by the ultimate climate change deniers– oil & energy companies who don’t want to pay to clean up the pollution they create. If these companies admit that global warming exists, then it leads to the conclusion that they should be cleaning up the pollution mess that they create.

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DMG says:

Keep getting your info from your sources:

Elizabeth Kolbert The New Yorker

Elizabeth Kolbert has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1999. Her stories for the magazine have included political profiles, book reviews, Comment pieces, and extensive writing on climate change. Her three-part series on global warming, “The Climate of Man,” won the 2006 National Magazine Award for Public Interest, the 2005 American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Award, and the 2006 National Academies Communication Award.

Kolbert came to the magazine from the New York Times, where she wrote the Metro Matters column and, from 1992 to 1997, was a political and media reporter. She also contributed articles to the New York Times Magazine on subjects ranging from the use of focus groups in elections to the New York water supply. From 1988 to 1991, she was the New York Times Albany Bureau Chief. Kolbert began working for the Times in 1984, as a stringer based in Germany, and moved to the Metro desk in 1985.

Her first book, “The Prophet of Love: And Other Tales of Power and Deceit,” was published in 2004. Her second book, “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” (2006), on global warming, is now available in paperback.

Kolbert lives in Massachusetts.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/elizabeth_kolbert/search?contributorName=elizabeth%20kolbert#ixzz2AniVryzT

…and i’ll keep getting mine from mine, muppet.

Reply
longview says:

And therein lies the problem.

Both sides select the news sources that suit their biases best.

Although I admit that DMG might just be being ironic since the Wikipedia page he referred to seems to undercut Bastardi’s value as a source.

Reply
ottnott says:

Bastardi undercuts Bastardi’s value as a source.

For example, he sent out a tweet on Sept. 6 crowing that the rapid rebound in Arctic sea ice confirms that the abnormally low ice amounts were due to a storm. He posted pictures to back up his statement – graphics showing a large increase in white areas in the Arctic region between Aug 27 and Sept 6. https://twitter.com/BigJoeBastardi/status/243647934581862400/photo/1/large

Unfortunately for Joe, and for anyone who thinks he has any positive value as a source of information on climate change, the graphics the posted were of sea surface temperatures, not of ice coverage, and Arctic sea ice extent dropped another 180,000 square kilometers before bottoming out for the year.
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

Reply
Mr. Cain Thaler says:

Let me just rattle off some of the variables known to effect temperatures and climates:

solar radiation, greenhouse gases, soil composition, vegetation, cloud cover, wind, bodies of water, presence of underground cavities, nearby topography (mountains, hills, valleys)

Feel free to add more. Those are what I can think of off the top of my head. They’ve been well known for millennia, because they’re critical in architecture.

So tell me, where are any of those variables present in these wonderful climate models being developed?

It’s all just fucking linear regression.

Seriously, the same dipshit assumptions and false narratives most of you would insult a major bank or financial institituion (AIG anyone?) of being guilty of leading up into the housing crisis are RAMPANT in these climate models.

Where do you have the chutzpah to insult an MIT major for fucking up housing and loans, but laud them for using the same God damned logic to build models telling us the Earth is about set itself on fire.

All based on a blink’s worth of data, of course…

Reply
ottnott says:

You are arguing from ignorance.

More accurately, you are arguing from severe, self-inflicted ignorance.

It isn’t a pretty sight.

Reply
Mr. Cain Thaler says:

Ottnot, have you even looked at the models detailing evidence of climate change?

Actually do you know the definition of an argumentum ad ignorantiam?

I am not arguing from ignorance because I am not claiming there is no climate change because the models are wrong.

I am claiming the models are wrong so you can’t claim climate change does or does not exist.

At all.

And that works both ways. You don’t get to say “well I am advocating for the love of Mother Gaia so we’re just going to change the way we’re doing pretty much everything even in the face of my approach being flawed”

No thanks.

The very definitions of these models are flawed from the onset because they don’t have any variables – which is what one should expect from any basic function that’s supposed to warn of temperature increases.

It’s just statistics. That’s all. Which is pretty useless on its own.

Reply
ottnott says:

A major flaw in your argument is that the models are primarily statistical.

They are not. They are primarily physical models.

If the climatologists used relied on statistics, it would indeed be useless, as you could have models that fit observed historical temperature data well, but achieved that fit by violating physical laws and known physical relationships.

So, if your argument against the models is that they are “just statistics” and “just fucking linear regression”, you are, as I stated, arguing from ignorance.

Reply
Mr. Cain Thaler says:

Okay.

Where are these physical models?

Show them.

Reply
Jakegint says:

(Crickets)

They are “physical” in that they drive physical phenomena. They are whollly statistically extrapolative, however.

_______

Reply
ottnott says:

You might want to stick to debunking my claims that Cain is not a serious candidate, or supporting your own claim that Perry is the one who will survive the GOP 2012 primary.

Your take on the models is incorrect.

Reply
ottnott says:

Your request that I “show them” illustrates why I stated that your ignorance on the matter was “self-inflicted”.

It is simple to find the leading models, such as NASA’s latest General Circulation Model (GISS GCM ModelE) here:
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/projects/gcm/

A PDF describing the model is here:
pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2006/2006_Schmidt_etal_1.pdf

Reply
Mr. Cain Thaler says:

Ahhh, there we go. That is exactly what I was looking for. A model that approaches this problem by using differentiable manifolds.

Here’s the thing though; I just finished skimming one of those papers. They don’t on their own confirm climate change.

Take a look at page 176 in the first jounal on that page. It shows heat transportation – the models being developed here are way off at the polls.

So the models that are telling us the ice caps are going to keep melting are most inaccurate at the ice caps?

Or page 187 that shows standard deviation of models in their ability to predict four dependents (solar radiation, cloud cover, precipitation, and East-West wind activity).

Oh, well gee the correlation between models and observable data on three of those four is terrible (only East-West wind seems predictable by those methods). And the results of all models is persistantly around 1 sigma of observable data – which still consumes the worst case scenario of temperature increase.

I will say I am comforted in seeing something like this. Whenever I touch the issue, it seems like the entire field is dominated by amateurs playing with first year linear regression.

But the takeaway from reading through that paper is really “we’re not there yet”. And still then, if we see that human behavior is definitively causing climate change, that still leads us to the question “is this so bad?”

Reply
Mr. Cain Thaler says:

Lol, you didn’t say my ignorance on the issue is self inflicted. You said I made an argument from ignorance, which is a very specific, logical fallacy.

Reply
ottnott says:

I said that you were arguing from ignorance, then followed immediately with:
“More accurately, you are arguing from severe, self-inflicted ignorance.”

As that is not in the formal language of logic or debate, you can apply the plain meaning to the words. You were ignorant of the fact that the climate models are primarily physical, not statistical. Given that you’ve shown some interest in the topic for some time, have visited at least one denial or skeptic site, and yet remained ignorant of basic, readily available information about the models, I judged it to be self-inflicted ignorance.

And now that you have skimmed a paper which was meant to describe a model and its recent improvements, and noted that the papers “don’t on their own confirm climate change”, I can see that you are determined to remain ignorant.

The model is meant to provide a reasonable approximation to the behavior of the planet’s climate under the influence of factors beyond the normal chaotic variation. If there are no drivers of climate change specified, such as increased volcanic activity, release from methane from thawing permafrost, etc., then the model will show no climate trends beyond the normal variation about a mean. There is no climate change built into the model.

Reply
Mr. Cain Thaler says:

Lol sure but then how do these models show climate change is happening?

You’re still assuming you know what carbon levels are going to be 100 years from now. And the method behind that approach is still purely statistical….

Reply

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Reply

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