Waiting for the Hurricane...
For obvious reasons, The Kinks' "Lost and Found" has been running through my head all day.
Waiting for the hurricane
To hit New York City
Somebody said it's hit the bay
This is the nitty gritty
And all the bag ladies
Better put their acts together
We're near the eye of the storm
This is really heavy weather
We were lost and found, in the nick of time
While the ship was going down
We were lost and found, just in time
With the hurricane crossing the coast line
We were lost and found, just in time
Oh
This thing is bigger than the both of us
It's gonna put us in our place
We were lost and found, just in time
Now we've got no time to waste
They're putting up the barricades
Because the hurricane is heading up this way
So won't you come in from the cold and the pouring rain
And the old sea dog says shiver me timbers
The sky's gone black
And it's like the dead of winter
We were lost and found in the pouring rain
When the hurricane swept across the coast line
This thing is bigger than the both of us
It's gonna put us in our place
We're gonna see what really matters
When you see that storm stare us in the face
We were lost and found
And we beat the fear
We came through the storm
Now it all seems clear
We were lost and found, standing here
Looking at the new frontier
Ray Davies, The Kinks
There's a video here, but YouTube disabled embedding, so you'll have to click.
---
Spent the day getting ready for whatever comes. Tried to get some D cells, but everyone was sold out. Plenty of AA and AAA, but none of the big guys. I briefly considered looking at generators, but they were already long gone. I can rig up a makeshift using an AC inverter that I got years ago that plugs into a car's cigarette lighter. It won't run a refrigerator, but I can probably charge my laptop with it.
Took some photos of the Bradford pear out front, to capture what it looked like on what is likely its last day with most of its limbs.* I moved the gas grill and some of the other backyard objects close by the house and out of the wind. I also pulled the air conditioner from the bedroom window so that I can seal the window. I learned the hard way when hurricane Bob rolled through in '89 that air conditioners do next to nothing to prevent horizontally projected rainfall from getting through them. The downside is that it's been high 70's with 80%+ humidity all day, so it's been frelling miserable without the a/c.
* I've mentioned before about how Bradford pears are terribly susceptible to storm damage after they pass ten years old or so. I lost one of the two I had about five years ago. The remaining tree is now about 22 years old, and has lived a mostly charmed life so far. If the winds are what they predict, I suspect most of it will be on the ground by tomorrow evening.
They're also predicting flooding, so I spent some time in the basement making sure nothing was on the floor should the water table rise up through the floor like a year and a half ago. I never did dig a sump for the sump pump I bought back then, so since I had the time today, I hooked up the air hammer** I bought a while back for just that job to the compressor, and had at it.
** I got the hammer sometime over the winter, so I should've tried this out before now.
Turns out I'm gonna need a bigger hammer, or a better chisel for the hammer. I managed to chip out some of the top layer of concrete, down about half an inch to an inch below the surface, over about a third of the foot square or so of floor that I need to dig out. Looking at the chips that came out, the hammer works well until it reaches the level the aggregate settled to when the concrete was curing. Once it started hitting the stones of the aggregate, it was less effective. I saw Tommy Silva dig a sump on an episode of Ask This Old House, and he used a portable jackhammer, which he also said are rentable. I will need to check this out.***
*** If for no other reason than because when I was very young, I loved jackhammers. My parents even got me a toy one. Unfortunately, it only simulated the action of a jackhammer, and wasn't actually able to penetrate concrete. Sigh.
I'm not too, too worried about flooding. For one thing, I had warning to get stuff off the floor. For another, unlike most of the Northeast, we haven't actually had all that much rain this summer, so I don't think the ground is saturated as it is in many places. I had to water the garden the other night, and I've only had to mow the lawn three time since the 4th of July. We could stand some rain.
After I finished cleaning up down there, I emptied the shop vac so that it would be ready if I need to suck up any water. I also did a couple of loads of laundry.
---
The main thing I'm worried about is power. I have city water and a gas hot water heater and stove (plus the grill) so I should be okay for cooking and cleaning. I don't have any reserve batteries for my camp lanterns, but I have some AAs for my smaller flashlights, and I have candles. Worse comes to worst, there will likely be power at work before there's any here, so I can always head there. I was there today, too, shutting down the servers.
Stay dry, everyone.
Waiting for the hurricane
To hit New York City
Somebody said it's hit the bay
This is the nitty gritty
And all the bag ladies
Better put their acts together
We're near the eye of the storm
This is really heavy weather
We were lost and found, in the nick of time
While the ship was going down
We were lost and found, just in time
With the hurricane crossing the coast line
We were lost and found, just in time
Oh
This thing is bigger than the both of us
It's gonna put us in our place
We were lost and found, just in time
Now we've got no time to waste
They're putting up the barricades
Because the hurricane is heading up this way
So won't you come in from the cold and the pouring rain
And the old sea dog says shiver me timbers
The sky's gone black
And it's like the dead of winter
We were lost and found in the pouring rain
When the hurricane swept across the coast line
This thing is bigger than the both of us
It's gonna put us in our place
We're gonna see what really matters
When you see that storm stare us in the face
We were lost and found
And we beat the fear
We came through the storm
Now it all seems clear
We were lost and found, standing here
Looking at the new frontier
Ray Davies, The Kinks
There's a video here, but YouTube disabled embedding, so you'll have to click.
---
Spent the day getting ready for whatever comes. Tried to get some D cells, but everyone was sold out. Plenty of AA and AAA, but none of the big guys. I briefly considered looking at generators, but they were already long gone. I can rig up a makeshift using an AC inverter that I got years ago that plugs into a car's cigarette lighter. It won't run a refrigerator, but I can probably charge my laptop with it.
Took some photos of the Bradford pear out front, to capture what it looked like on what is likely its last day with most of its limbs.* I moved the gas grill and some of the other backyard objects close by the house and out of the wind. I also pulled the air conditioner from the bedroom window so that I can seal the window. I learned the hard way when hurricane Bob rolled through in '89 that air conditioners do next to nothing to prevent horizontally projected rainfall from getting through them. The downside is that it's been high 70's with 80%+ humidity all day, so it's been frelling miserable without the a/c.
* I've mentioned before about how Bradford pears are terribly susceptible to storm damage after they pass ten years old or so. I lost one of the two I had about five years ago. The remaining tree is now about 22 years old, and has lived a mostly charmed life so far. If the winds are what they predict, I suspect most of it will be on the ground by tomorrow evening.
They're also predicting flooding, so I spent some time in the basement making sure nothing was on the floor should the water table rise up through the floor like a year and a half ago. I never did dig a sump for the sump pump I bought back then, so since I had the time today, I hooked up the air hammer** I bought a while back for just that job to the compressor, and had at it.
** I got the hammer sometime over the winter, so I should've tried this out before now.
Turns out I'm gonna need a bigger hammer, or a better chisel for the hammer. I managed to chip out some of the top layer of concrete, down about half an inch to an inch below the surface, over about a third of the foot square or so of floor that I need to dig out. Looking at the chips that came out, the hammer works well until it reaches the level the aggregate settled to when the concrete was curing. Once it started hitting the stones of the aggregate, it was less effective. I saw Tommy Silva dig a sump on an episode of Ask This Old House, and he used a portable jackhammer, which he also said are rentable. I will need to check this out.***
*** If for no other reason than because when I was very young, I loved jackhammers. My parents even got me a toy one. Unfortunately, it only simulated the action of a jackhammer, and wasn't actually able to penetrate concrete. Sigh.
I'm not too, too worried about flooding. For one thing, I had warning to get stuff off the floor. For another, unlike most of the Northeast, we haven't actually had all that much rain this summer, so I don't think the ground is saturated as it is in many places. I had to water the garden the other night, and I've only had to mow the lawn three time since the 4th of July. We could stand some rain.
After I finished cleaning up down there, I emptied the shop vac so that it would be ready if I need to suck up any water. I also did a couple of loads of laundry.
---
The main thing I'm worried about is power. I have city water and a gas hot water heater and stove (plus the grill) so I should be okay for cooking and cleaning. I don't have any reserve batteries for my camp lanterns, but I have some AAs for my smaller flashlights, and I have candles. Worse comes to worst, there will likely be power at work before there's any here, so I can always head there. I was there today, too, shutting down the servers.
Stay dry, everyone.