Leslie and I are still stuck in New Orleans. As I noted yesterday, we have been stranded by US Airways which cancelled flights to Washington yesterday despite the relatively mild weather in the city. It appears that the airline simply did not want aircraft in Washington when the storm hit. My complaint has not been that decision but the lack of consumer support after trying for hours to reach anyone at the airline. We have little choice but to try to drive back to Virginia since we have four kids who are being watched over by our sitter (I also have classes to teach on Tuesday and Wednesday). We intend to be highly cautious and stop if it gets to dicey. However, we cannot leave the kids any longer in this storm.
We have been told that we might be able to get on a flight for Tuesday but it does not look promising. Indeed, it was not even raining last night in D.C. with low winds. Tuesday looks like it will be pouring with strong winds. We love New Orleans (where I used to live) but we are increasingly anxious to be with the kids.
There may be an interruption in my posting on Tuesday in light of our effort to drive back. I will try to tweet on our status.
I hope everyone is safe during the storm. I would not travel if we were not separated from our kids. I strongly recommend that people stay indoors and of course continually on this blog.
http://news.yahoo.com/why-hurricane-sandy-might-cost-obama-the-popular-vote-but-not-the-presidency-1030125687.html It is fine here, lee.
good guess we are both far enough away from Manayunk, etc.
I passed Nutter giving a press conference last Friday about the possible flooding and thght too early and overreacting. Glad he was on top of it of warning people early
Think of all the silly buttercups who were worried about hurricane Sandy!
Hurricane Sandy Damage Photos: Superstorm’s ‘Unthinkable’ Aftermath Revealed (PICTURES)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/30/hurricane-sandy-damage-photos-superstorm-unthinkable-aftermath_n_2044099.html#slide=1701881
SWM really lucked out. I see nothing on our street and only a big roof shingle down on my grounds(hoping its not mine) How about there? (youmay have said and I missed it)
“Look, America, we here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) may not know much, even though we occasionally act like we know everything, but, trust us. We know this guy. There’s a reason why he’s going to lose this state by more than 20 points. The only thing about him that you can depend on is that there’s never any room in the lifeboat for The Help.” -Charlie Pierce
Thanks for the link/article Elaine M. Somebody could use in an ad.
idealist Rove’s Crossroads is doubling down in NC today. Shows the race is tight there.
Incredible. Just shows what propaganda can achieve. Change positions many times and folks believe that you mean what they want you to mean. Can that be true? What does Bernay and Rove say?
Swarthmore mom,
More from Charlie Pierce on our former governor:
Governor Romney After the (2006) Flood: Not Good
By Charles P. Pierce
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mitt-romney-mothers-day-floods-2006-14260979
Now that he’s again decided to mention (obliquely) that he was our governor once, and we’re all up here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) being awakened by the sweet sounds of woodchippers in our streets, we should look back at the one natural disaster (locally, anyway, Katrina being a whole ‘nother story) that occurred while Willard Romney was still nominally governor of Massachusetts: the great Mother’s Day floods of 2006.
The entire region was under flood warnings, but the problem was especially acute along the Merrimack River, especially in the city of Lowell, where Romney’s response was considered, well, leaky. The right-leaning Lowell Sun was particularly displeased.
We find it inconceivable that Gov. Mitt Romney claims the state can do nothing to help those residents still struggling to rebuild homes and businesses after the May flood. Massachusetts is sitting on millions in unspent emergency funds from Hurricane Katrina and more than $1 billion in cash reserves, yet Romney has failed to even respond to the Lowell delegation’s requests to discuss additional aid for victims. The governor’s spokesman — since Romney can’t be bothered to comment now that the photo opportunities have dried up even though some residents’ basements haven’t — said the state will not consider spending its own money for flood victims until it’s clear how much cash the federal government will give.
Then, he joined several of his predecessors in being something of a deadbeat:
Governor John Lynch today wrote Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney to tell him that New Hampshire will take legal action if Massachusetts doesn’t act to pay the $3.2 million it owes New Hampshire communities for flood control dams. “Nearly 50 years ago, New Hampshire communities agreed to sacrifice land and future property tax revenues in order to build flood control dams to help protect the people of Massachusetts. We saw during the floods of Mother’s Day Weekend just how valuable those dams were in saving lives and property,” Governor Lynch said. “Yet despite the proven value of these dams to the citizens of Massachusetts, Massachusetts is still reneging on the commitments it made when our two states established the flood control system,” Governor Lynch said. “It’s time for Massachusetts to meet its obligations and pay what it owes New Hampshire, or we will take legal action.” New Hampshire and Massachusetts entered the Merrimack River Valley Flood Control Compact in 1957. Under the Compact, Massachusetts agreed to reimburse New Hampshire 70 percent of the amount of property taxes lost because of the acquisition and ownership of the dams and reservoirs comprising the Merrimack River Valley Flood Control Project. Massachusetts made no payment to New Hampshire in 1994, only partial payments from 1995 to 2002, and has not paid anything since 2003.
That would track with Governors Weld, Cellucci, and Romney, Republicans all, by the way.
At the time, Romney pretty much had given up his job as governor and was gearing up for the seven-year run at the presidency that will climax, one way or the other, next Tuesday night. He was just beginning the job of polishing up his conservatism, and abdicating on government flood relief was one of the first steps he took in that direction. (This is the very public process that he’s now pretending didn’t happen. Not even last spring, when he was talking about chloroforming FEMA, which he now says he didn’t mean.) At the same time, he was using the federal government as alibi, scapegoat and ATM machine. Look, America, we here in the Commonwealth (God save it!) may not know much, even though we occasionally act like we know everything, but, trust us. We know this guy. There’s a reason why he’s going to lose this state by more than 20 points. The only thing about him that you can depend on is that there’s never any room in the lifeboat for The Help.
idealist, He is good. Elaine found him first.
SwM,
hugs, for here comea an “ElaineM” for you.
The Charles P Pierce thingy was from October 29th, not 30th. No malice intended, only a joke between us.
found it anyway.. The main thing for me was to find a new fun blogger. Thanks.
Sandy takes down Huffington Post, Gawker websites
Reuters
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sandy-takes-down-huffington-post-121526237.html
Excerpt:
REUTERS – Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit eastern United States, flooded servers of Datagram Inc in New York City, bringing down several media websites it hosts, including Huffington Post and Gawker.
“We are continuing to battle flooding and fiber outages in downtown New York and Connecticut,” a notice posted on Datagram’s website said. http://r.reuters.com/wat63t
“Verizon and other carriers in the area are down as well. Generators are unable to pump fuel due to the flooding in the basements,” Datagram said.
New York-based Datagram offers server-hosting services, network and Web application support, and database administration.
Sandy, which was especially imposing because of its wide-raging winds, brought a record surge of almost 14 feet (4.2 meters) to downtown Manhattan, well above the previous record of 10 feet (3 meters) during Hurricane Donna in 1960, the National Weather Service said.
lee, Did you get any damage?
Nick. nick spinelli1, October 29, 2012 at 5:14 pm
Prediction: This will not be nearly the disaster hyped by cable tv and news and weather who are trying to scare the shit out of you just so they can sell you soap, soda, autos, etc. We are fast becoming a culture of scared lemmings. “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” Howard Beale.
Scared lemmings react as a result of unfounded fear. This, as has been repeatedly posted here, was not a false alarm.
Death, destruction, power outages that are expected to last for a long period of time, heck, that’s nothin to me I guess is what you are saying. Nothing as long as you were not involved.
There was panic mongering by the media, even today Matt Lauer says there was “panic” in the NYC streets about the crane that had it fell could well have become a missile (but hey Nick what’s a potential projectile missile – they should have stayed out on the streets, those darn NYC lemmings.)
Both sides are valid. Over reacting: when they say bad snowstorms here in Phila area people act as though they will be stranded for months and buy out the milk, etc. and some stations stay on for hours when it is a nothing incident.
Underreacting and staying in your homes despite evacuation orders putting not only yourself, and poss. family at risk but also putting those who selflessly come to rescue you at great risk.
Ibn this instance no one, absent the media before it hit – graphics saying Major electrical outages may take weeks to fix – before there was any outtage and Lauer as example saying “panic” when tghat was not the case
Officials did not overreact but wanted to do what was the best and safest for the people of their areas.
What Happens When a Frankenstorm Hits the Madhouse
By Charles P. Pierce
at 10:27AM
In case we all lose all electrical power, and are all deafened by the derisive laughter from above of millions of long-dead Mayans, I thought I’d make this point as clearly as I can before I wind up blogging with chalk on the back of the family coal scuttle.
Anybody who says they know how this gigantic weather event is going to “impact the election” is lying to you. Nobody knows anything on this one. Certainly, there are practical considerations. There are several states in the path of the storm — Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, again — that have Republican governors empowered to create and maintain states of emergency. (Not that I suspect that any of them would use those powers to partisan advantage. Oh, no, not I.) It can play havoc with the popular vote in the most populous areas of the country, increasing the possibility of a popular vote/electoral vote split, and all the lovely civility that will surely result from such an eventuality. And, let us never forget, Our Nation’s Capital reacts to even the gentlest touch of bad weather with all the cool aplomb of a food riot. (Three inches of snow and they’re cutting up goats on a rock in Lafayette Park.) This storm is punching Washington right in the pundits. It is entirely possible that the entire government-media-political industrial complex will shut down for several days. This may or may not be a bad thing.
However, as to the campaign itself, and taking as axiomatic that almost anything can “impact” an election as close as this one apparently is shaping up to be, there’s absolutely no telling what the effect of massive four-day weather event in the middle of this week will have on the events of the middle of next week. Certainly, in situations like this, the president has several trump cards he can play simply by virtue of being the incumbent. He can act as president. He can engage FEMA and the rest of the federal disaster apparatus to help those governors, Republican and Democratic, who are in the path of the storm. (He just might be in more pictures with Chris Christie over the next week than with Joe Biden.) He can demonstrate, top to bottom, by example, why “leaving it to the states” and, worse, “the private sector can do it better” are empty platitudes. The storm is hitting 12 states. This is something we need to do as one country. (And, also not for nothing, but Paul Ryan’s “budgets” would eviscerate our ability to do this.) The president can enlist Christie, or Tom Corbett in Pennsylvania, or Mitch McConnell in flood-prone Kentucky, or Bob McDonnell and Eric Cantor in Virginia, in that effort, and they will have no real way to avoid it. In fact, here’s Cantor, being a fool last year about the people who were flooded out by Hurricane Irene….
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said “if there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental.”
(Okay, float away, foof. See if I care. Reason No. Infinity why I never will be president.)
The problem, of course, is that a good piece of the political opposition doesn’t recognize this president as president when the sun’s shining. The people who will tell you that disaster relief is best left to the states, or to the private sector, are going be howling at the White House if some cat isn’t brought down from a tree in Cape May in less than five minutes. There are a thousand things that can go unavoidably wrong in a situation like this. It is the most fertile environment imaginable for unpredictability. The good news for the president is that he’s in charge. The bad news for the president is that he’s in charge, and the opposition is still truthless, and demented.
Here’s the last thing that I’d like to throw out there before we all go 1856 all over for a while. This entire campaign has been fought out over the issue of whether or not we are all members of a viable political commonwealth with implicit mutual obligations to act through our government — a self-government that is, or ought to be, the purest creative project of that commonwealth — for the common good, or whether that government is a some sort of alien entity repressing our fundamental entrepreneurial energy. Over the next few days, I believe, we are going to see that argument brought to the sharpest point possible. If you want to see how this event will “impact the election,” look to what answer to that question emerges from the storm. It will tell us a lot about the election, and about ourselves.
Six alarm fire destroys 50 Queens homes
200 New York firefighters battled the blaze, hampered by floodwater VIDEO
By Natasha Lennard
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/six_alarm_fire_destroys_50_queens_homes/
Sandy’s aftermath, state-by-state
More than 7.5 million homes and businesses were put in the dark and at least 18 people died
By Associated Press
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/30/sandys_devastation_state_by_state/
Excerpt:
The massive storm that started out as Hurricane Sandy slammed into the East Coast and morphed into a huge and problematic system, putting more than 7.5 million homes and businesses in the dark and causing at least 18 deaths. Here’s a snapshot of what is happening, state by state.
CAROLINAS
North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue expanded a state of emergency to western North Carolina, which could see a foot of snow. A woman who was pulled from the Atlantic after abandoning a tall ship died. Power outages: 6,600.
CONNECTICUT
The Long Island Sound flooded roads as the storm toppled trees and power lines Two people died, including an Easton firefighter who was killed when a tree fell on his truck. Power outages: More than 615,000.
DELAWARE
Nearly all residents of flood-prone coastal communities in Kent County heeded calls to evacuate. The Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach resort communities were flooded. Power outages: More than 45,000.
ILLINOIS
High wind warnings and a lakeshore flood warning are in effect Tuesday and Wednesday in Chicago. City officials said Lake Shore Drive is expected to remain open.
KENTUCKY
A winter storm warning is in effect for three southeastern counties until Wednesday. In some areas, winds could gust up to 50 mph through Tuesday.
MAINE
Wind gusts topped 60 mph, shutting down the port of Portland and knocking out power to homes and businesses. Power outages: More than 86,000.
MARYLAND
Floodwaters swamped touristy Ocean City. In western Maryland, snow tied up traffic. A falling tree killed a man in Pasadena. Power outages: 290,000.
MASSACHUSETTS
Strong winds and heavy surf led to mandatory evacuations in sections of coastal Dartmouth and Fall River and voluntary evacuations in other coastal communities. Power outages: More than 300,000.
MICHIGAN
High winds knocked out power to at least 60,000 homes and businesses.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Politicians canceled visits to the presidential swing state on Monday. Power outages: 179,000.
NEW JERSEY
The center of the storm came ashore Monday evening near Atlantic City, which was cut off from the mainland by the storm surge along with other barrier islands, stranding residents who ignored warnings to evacuate. Hundreds of people were being evacuated after a levee broke in the northern New Jersey town of Moonachie. At least three deaths were reported. Power outages: More than 2.3 million.
NEW YORK
A record storm surge that was higher than predicted along with high winds damaged the electrical system and plunged millions of people into darkness. Utilities say it could be up to a week before power is fully restored. The governor’s office said there were five storm-related deaths. A fire burned 50 houses in one flooded section of Queens. Power outages: More than 1.8 million.
OHIO
The Cleveland area and northeast Ohio were being slammed with rain and high winds. Snow was reported in some parts south of Cleveland and south of Columbus. Power outages: More than 250,000.
PENNSYLVANIA
Wind and flooding closing more than 200 bridges and roads. Four people died, including an 8-year-old boy who was killed when a tree limb fell on him. Power outages: 1.2 million.
Swarthmore mom,
EXCLUSIVE: Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Mislead Voters In Wisconsin
By Scott Keyes
Oct 30, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/30/1106961/romney-wisconsin-poll-watchers/
Excerpt:
Mitt Romney’s campaign has been training poll watchers in Wisconsin with highly misleading — and sometimes downright false — information about voters’ rights.
Documents from a recent Romney poll watcher training obtained by ThinkProgress contain several misleading or untrue claims about the rights of Wisconsin voters. A source passed along the following packet of documents, which was distributed to volunteers at a Romney campaign training in Racine on October 25th. In total, six such trainings were held across the state in the past two weeks.
One blatant falsehood occurs on page 16 of the training packet, which informed poll watchers that any identification cards from a voter “must include a photo”, despite the fact that Wisconsin’s voter ID law has been blocked by multiple state judges for this election.
The training also encouraged volunteers to deceive election workers and the public about who they were associated with. On page 5 of the packet, Romney poll workers were instructed to hide their affiliation with the campaign and told to sign in at the polls as a “concerned citizen” instead. As Kristina Sesek, Romney’s legal counsel who just graduated from Marquette Law School last year, explained, “We’re going to have you sign in this election cycle as a ‘concerned citizen.’ We’re just trying to alleviate some of the animosity of being a Republican observer up front.”
Columbus Voters Turn Out Amid Rain, But Cleveland Hit Worse
Benjy Sarlin 10:08 AM EDT, Tuesday October 30, 2012
“Hurricane Sandy’s electoral impact seems muted so far in Columbus, Ohio, where the Washington Post reports that early voting reached its peak on Monday despite rain. But the Democrats’ stronghold in Cleveland took the brunt of the storm and many are without power as high winds continue throughout the day. Democrats need to run up big margins in the county to win, so any disruption of early voting could potentially affect their chances in Ohio.” TPM
“I fear that the outrage about Romney wanting to eliminate FEMA will make us forget he wants to eliminate Planned Parenthood & healthcare. ” Andy Borowitz, the Borowitz Report.
You be safe too, OS.
Glad Professor Turley and Leslie are able to make their way toward home. I have been watching the NWS maps and it looks as if the further east they get from the I-81 corridor, the less snow there will be. Of course, there will be wind damage, but that should not be a problem unless there are trees across the road. The biggest danger now is being at the mercy of the worst drivers on the road. There will be plenty of those.
Everyone stay safe. I now have to leave for a mountain community which is at an elevation about 1,200 feet higher than where I am now. It is 34 degrees with mixed rain and snow here. The dry adiabatic lapse rate is 3.75 degrees F (2 degrees C) for every thousand feet of elevation. Therefore, I expect to hit snow and ice about ten miles out of town. Hopefully the salt trucks and snowplows will have cleared the road. I will drop a note when I get back.