superfrankenperfectstorm sandy

With a record storm surge in Manhattan of 13.88 feet and vast amounts of damage and cost, including sadly, the price of human lives... hurricane Sandy (which I believe was downgraded to a "post-tropical cyclone" upon running into the winter storm) has come and gone.  It was a first for each of us-- and quite the way to celebrate Clement's 3 month birthday!

We were very fortunate:  our neighborhood is not in a flood plain, and we never even lost power (the way 90% of Long Island did).  Internet was out for a bit-- that was the worst we got.  The wind was really intimidating while it was blowing in directly from the east and over the Long Island Sound, but once it switched to SE, it calmed down a lot for us.

Struck with major cabin fever (it's a small apartment for 4 people!), we went out today to hike around and see what the aftermath was like in our neck of the woods.  

Small tree down next to our home (we're the top two windows on the left):

This tree fell a bit down our road.  We're the green awning in the center of the picture below.

 As we walked the rest of the way down our block towards Ditmars, this is what we came to:

 OUCH.

This lady I liked.  She reminded me of my brother.  She was threatening to charge everyone taking a picture of her house $1.  

Then we headed down to Astoria Park to check out the water levels.  A few trees had fallen, but the damage wasn't bad.  In some ways, the storm had the great effect of forcing a ton of New Yorkers to take a break.  Limited power/internet, no transportation, much of Manhattan shut down... what else could they do?  There were so many people out just idly strolling along.

I can't find what the official water level rise was on the East River up by Astoria.  When we went to see it, it wasn't anywhere close to the top of this concrete wall.  Normally, however, you can see several feet of these rocks sticking out into the water, piled up against the base of the wall.  I'm guessing this is about 4 feet up?

One of the bizarre effects is how many bright green leaves cover the ground.  The storm certainly sped up fall.  Makes me a little sad, because the seasons changing reminds me that our time here is approaching its end.

Skies are still gloomy, spitting rain.  I think things are supposed to clear up around Friday.  

Meanwhile, Laguardia airport has less than one week to get itself out from under water.  I have a very special wedding to get to!