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Preparing for Hurricane Irene in Eastern New York

JonC — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 16:18:11 +0000

With Hurricane Irene on the way to the Northeast and possibly making it through our area with 80-100mph winds on Saturday evening on into Sunday it’s important to make a few preparations just in case. The Northeast hasn’t been hit by a hurricane like this in many years and it’s not really something people are used to experiencing, certainly not me so I’ve been doing a lot of research on this.

We already got an earthquake which happened on August 23rd. It was based in Washington DC but some of my friends said they felt a soft swaying in the Hudson Valley / Saugerties / Kingston area and earlier this summer nearby Massachusetts was hit by some powerful tornadoes. It probably doesn’t hurt to prepare for this or other possible natural disasters which may occur.

They’re saying Irene is going to be a Category 1 and from the current storm track it’s not going to hit my area directly but stay more towards the coast. This just means high winds and a lot of rain but nothing extremely serious. If you’re in an area that’s going to get directly hit you’ll need to do a lot more to be prepared some of which are covered in the second part of the list.

A few of the things I’m going to do just in case Irene is going to pass by us, but indirectly hit us:

Make sure that any and all loose objects around the property are secured pretty good. I have a couple of carpentry projects on the porch that will need to be relocated out of the possible wind.I certainly don’t want my stuff blowing into the neighbors house!
Add some more weight to the base of the BBQ grill. I already have a paver holding it down which has worked fine when we’ve had 60mph wind gusts, but I’m going to put a nice big cinder block on the base too. Either that or move it into the shed (probably a better bet) might need it later for cooking.
Move the trash bins into the shed as well, those things will fly around like kites and I don’t want to have to go hunting for them after the storm.
Check the gutters and make sure that they are clear of leaves, twigs, etc as much as possible. There’s supposed to be a lot of rain coming with this storm as well and I want to make sure as much of it as possible goes well away from the house.
Check the sump pump and make sure it’s working good.
Get some supplies together just in case. Some bags of ice in case we need some for a cooler, water( 1 gallon per person per day), some food that doesn’t need to be cooked in case the power goes out, fill up the vehicles, fill up the gas cans. I already have tons of batteries and numerous flashlights floating around here. Charcoal is good to have in case you need to boil water or cook (outdoors!)
Park the cars away from the barn and the trees. The last thing we need is flattened vehicles.
Maybe it’s also a good time to trim some branches away from the house and look for any sickly trees on the property that I’d rather have fall where I want them.
Charge up the portable jump start pack and hook up the power inverter just in case we need some power to charge phones, turn on the TV or run the sump pump during a power outage. Fortunately the inverter can run off the car batteries too so it’s kind of like a makeshift generator.
Keep cell phones on the charger, so if the power goes out they’re fully charged. (Emergency services in most of the Hudson Valley area is 911, but if you’re in an area that’s not covered make sure to get the numbers for medical, local police, state police and fire emergency services in your area.) Ulster County Emergency Services, Greene County Emergency Services, Orange County Emergency Services, Rockland County Emergency Services are some, you can also check out NYALERT.org an emergency notification service by NY State or their iPhone app i-Alertz.
Find or buy a battery powered radio and have batteries for it. With modern technology battery powered portable radios aren’t all that common but it’s good to get a small one and keep batteries for it. (Thanks for the tip Nermel!)
Charge up the camcorder and camera and clear the memory cards so I can get some good hurricane footage.
Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to build a moat or a sniper tower around the house this summer, so if things go real bad and there’s a resulting zombie apocalypse I’m going to have to figure something else out.
Keep clean clothes, important documents, identification and other documents ready to go if things get worse or an evacuation is called for.
Report power outages and downed power lines or trees on roadways as soon as possible so emergency services can take care of them and protect people. Make note of the phone number for Central Hudson or your provider on a piece of paper as internet or directory service may not be available in an emergency situation.

Some other things you might do in your situation

If you fill your bathtub with water, you can use it to fill the tank of your toilet to flush it if you don’t have water. If you really really clean out your bathtub and drain opening well you can use it to store water for drinking.
Keep your pets indoors well before the storm, they can get scared and run off.
If you have a generator, test it out and make sure it works and has fuel and oil. Don’t run a generator indoors or outside by open windows, the exhaust can poison and kill you.

If your town is going to be directly impacted, then you need to take many more steps. I’m going to be keeping an eye on the storm track and if it starts tracking inland AND we get an evacuation order or similar I’ll do as much of the following as possible.

Install storm windows and board up windows. (it makes some holes, but it’s cheaper than fill holes than replace windows)
If you expect heavy storm damage to your home, protect the valuables you can’t take with you as much as possible by sealing them in waterproof bags, storing them up out of flood areas (second floor, or high on counters). Lock your windows and doors, close your shades.
Turn off your gas, water and electricity if possible. Gas and electricity in a damaged home increases the risk greatly to emergency workers and when you are returning home and broken water lines can cause damage which may be difficult to claim on insurance if it was the result of a hurricane.
Get a few hundred dollars in cash or more to last you and your family at least a week. If power-lines and communications are going to be down, an ATM might not work. You know the old saying, “In God We Trust, all others pay cash”.
Keep your clothes, important documents and identification waterproofed and packed by the door so when you leave it’s already there.
Don’t wait until the last minute if an evacuation order has been filed
Book a hotel room in advance in an unaffected area if you need to stay in one
If you’re going to be driving for a while, make sure you have checked your oil, transmission fluid, windshield washer fluid, tire pressure and other things as well as have already topped off your tank.
Check with neighbors and friends to see if they need help evacuating or getting prepared.
Plan in advance where to meet if you get separated from friends or family during evacuation.
Don’t ride the storm out when everyone else in town has left, it’s a bad idea and it’s not worth playing the odds. If you decide you’re going to, write your SSN on your arm under your shirt so that your body can be more easily identified by the rescue workers in case you don’t survive.

Important things to do / not to do in any emergency situation:

Because we’re not regularly hit by hurricanes, many homes in this area are less resistant to hurricanes than homes built in places like Florida. Don’t trust your house to stay in one piece throughout a hurricane where local authorities have ordered evacuation. Here’s a good read on hurricane damage
If your town has been heavily hit, don’t count on the city water being clean. You need to sterilize it. You can boil it for 1 minutes (though longer is better), use unscented bleach to do this (8 drops per gallon, or 16 if it’s cloudy) or you can buy water sterilization tablets from a outdoor outfitters store.
Don’t ever use charcoal or propane grills inside of the home or garage for cooking or heat. This will, more than likely, kill you and your family with carbon monoxide poisoning. Charcoal is only good for cooking outside and if you waited till the last minute you’re going to have a hard time finding some anyways.
Stay away from downed trees and power lines, don’t even get close to them. If a downed power line is active the electricity can be conducted through the ground or other objects such as trees and into your body, killing you. There’s no way to tell if it’s live, they don’t always spark and spit like you see in the movies.
If you return to a damaged home, don’t stay inside of it until a structural engineer or similarly knowledgeable person has deemed it safe. It’s possible for damage to look less than it is and then have the building collapse at a later time.
Double check yourself to make sure you’re making the right decisions, it’s easy to make a mistake when your in a rush, when in doubt, ask a trusted friend or neighbor.

It sounds like a lot or maybe excessive and panicky, but it’s really not a big deal if you go step by step and react depending on the severity, it’s just some planning ahead (Some of the general stuff is maintenance I should have done over the summer anyways.) Hurricane Irene is still a few days out and it could change it’s direction but I’m not going to count on lucking out for this one. You can find out more about Hurricane Irene and watch this storm at The Weather Channel.

There’s also NOAA’s updates: Public Advisory which they update regularly with the latest info.

This is by no means the end-all be-all survival guide or a ‘do this and you’ll be ok’ list. It’s a bunch of good ideas that will help you out. Always listen to your state or local emergency management staff to know when you can stay, when you should go and everything else about a storm. That’s what they’re paid to do and should have up to the minute news that will help you decide the best options and decisions to make.

Okay We’ve Gotten Quite a Bit More Snow

JonC — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 00:17:02 +0000

My last post, quite a while ago was “We Finally Got Some Snow” and since then we’ve been hit by storm after storm. It’s a lot of work clearing out the snow and such, but it’s pretty cool to have a good Winter finally after several years of lame ones.

We’re still in the midst of the latest Winter storm which is hitting a lot of the country right now, but managed to get a couple of pictures of the weather. I’m just going to post them below. There’s also a couple pictures of the Ariens snow blower doing it’s job. I love how far this thing throws the snow. It’d probably be able to throw it all the way across the highway but I haven’t tried that yet!

Click the pictures to enlarge them.

Winter Is Passing Me By to Visit Washington State! Noooooo!

JonC — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 03:17:23 +0000

Winter in the North East has been pretty mild lately. I’m a bit disappointed of course. My poor snow BLOWER (thrower? pshht!) is not getting the attention or work it desires and is becoming flabby. As I told my folks it’s bellowing out in the barn waiting to be unleashed and I might have to buy it some chains to keep it calm until something comes along.

Here’s my beloved snowblower on it’s actual birthday (year 0) doing a bit of work on the driveway. It looks so happy. (Click to imbiggenate)

So I’m sitting here, listening to the poor beast wailing in it’s own beastly way in the barn (It’s probably a mental thing but I don’t think work insurance covers psychologists… at least I don’t hear psychologists in my mind!) The barn doors are taking a bit of a beating as it bucks against them. But no.. It’s November 23rd and can you believe it was almost 60 degrees today!?

Then I start getting a gmail photo flood from the family out in Washington.. “oooh look snow! check out all the snow! OMG it’s a lot of snow!”. It’s about 6 inches, and if you’re from the west coast you’ll know that’s a LOT of snow for people without plows and who are prohibited to save human lives by using salt because they may hurt a bunch of nasty tasting fish(unless it’s wood smoked, then yum). BUT.. I digress. Check out the photos below and see what they’re torturing me with!

This is one of the photo’s my Mom sent me as the snow started coming down and covering the lawn. Washington State does get snow but normally they don’t get a lot in the sea level areas. The last big storm I remember was maybe about a foot and it shut down traffic, closed the highway and people were parking on the side of the road as they ran out of gas. Crazy stuff! What a mess, I imagine this was pretty bad as well!

This is another picture from my mom. Don’t they know copper conducts cold!!! I’d stay far away from that vehicle!

This is a picture of my sisters front yard after more of the snow fell. Yeah there’s the sun. Typical Washington State. Freezing blizzard of doom one moment and sunny the next, then hail, then rain which melts all the snow, floods out the farmers, then freezes then melts, then 90 degree temps before misting for 6 months.

Here’s another pic of the snow storm in Washington State. It’s all dark and dreary too, like snow weather is supposed to be!

Thanks for sharing the pics family, it’s good to see you get some of the winter cheer as well!

My Plans for the Upcoming Week of Vacation at Home

JonC — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 06:07:41 +0000

Hi folks, I’m taking a week vacation finally. It should be great to get some away time and recharge the batteries so to speak. I’m planning on painting some of the house, flying some R/C and working on the FPV system some more. With so much time available there should be quite a few blog posts.

I finished the mods to the Trimersion video headset for the FPV and took the pictures, I just need to post them up. I have a couple of planes on the way. I got some good tips for painting the house from a professional painter who is actually professional with the work he does. There will be some stuff about painting an old house, some stuff about general R/C flying and some FPV stuff so it should be a good week all around!

Unlike some folks, when I take a vacation I hang around the house. I don’t think that planning out and doing complex things during one’s time off is a beneficial thing, for myself, but I know everyone has their own idea of what they find relaxing and everything else. No matter what you do, do something that will build good memories, or alternately just sleep for eternity till you have to go back to work.

The weather for the next few days is supposed to be beautiful out here!

I hope to have some great stuff to share with everyone. Take care and be well!

The First Snow Signifies Winter is Officially Here

JonC — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 18:03:09 +0000

I woke up this morning planning to get some flying in. Got out of bed, peered out the window and nothing. So I went to grab a shower, and was saying to myself moments before looking out the hallway window ‘It’s quite unlikely it’ll snow today’ (yes I talk to myself like that in my head). Right then I looked out the window and sure enough, white stuff landing on the roof of the house.

I took a video a short while later, which you can see here via the link, or with the embeded player.

Snow!

It’s also quite unlikely that this will keep me from getting at least a few flights in on some kind of airplane, I’ll probably go out with the reactor biplane since it’s easy to setup and put away.

Strange Cloud Formations and Yankee Gutter Repair Updates

JonC — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:33:10 +0000

Well I did get manage to get the roof leak patched on the house, but I got so absorbed with things like getting the tools put away, fixing the roof, etc and I didn’t bother getting finished photos. Due to feeling kind of lousy I just ended up patching the existing ‘gutter’ for now and will be saving to hire someone else to do the major re-work on these Yankee gutters which are in such bad shape. I think the final solution may be to just remove them, though I’m not big on changing the look of the house I don’t want to have continuous problems with them for the duration of owning the house.

I find I’m not comfortable that high up, even on a boom lift. If I’m -high- on a ladder, I think every little wiggle is the ladder about to give way, and apparently if I’m high up in a boom lift, I think every little wiggle is one of the legs of the boom lift about to sink into the ground and tip on me! I’m pretty good on ladders up to about 12 feet or so, perfectly comfortable, as I move higher than that I get more nervous. It’s pretty well known if you’re nervous and panic easily with heights, you don’t want to be in precarious situations because you may respond incorrectly and make a bad situation worse. So, if you panic easily with heights, don’t go up high and find someone else to do it, certainly not worth becoming disabled or dead to save some money.

It’s odd though I do not have a fear of heights when I’m in an airplane, building or other enclosed cabins. If I’m hanging over mid-air, with a couple of spindly posts holding me up then I really have some problems.

At any rate, the Yankee gutter is now patched with a asphalt + fiber + mesh tape roof patch and nails and it’s been raining throughout the day and no water has been coming into the house, so far, which was the primary goal of this whole mess. Hopefully it will stay dry in here and we will be able to paint the wall with the Killz primer/stain blocker and then repaint with the room color.

I have some nice photos to share today. The first is a pretty awesome cloud formation that came through right behind a thunder storm. I had stepped outside the office to go to another building when I saw these, so I grabbed the camera out of my car and shot these photos. These bubble shaped clouds are Mammatus or Mammatocumulus clouds which means ‘bumpy clouds’. Mammatas is in reference to their shape like a breast or udder. I hope you enjoy learning these things with me

Mammatocumulus aka "Bumpy Clouds"

Mammatus Clouds

Mammatus Clouds

Bubble Shaped Clouds

These really 3D looking cloud formations remind me a lot of a photo I took a few years back. This photo is of dense clouds which are shaped like ocean waves across the sky. I was accused of photoshopping the picture by quite a lot of people, but it’s not photoshopped and is an original. I’ve never found an official name for these clouds, they don’t qualify as rolling clouds, and they have different characteristics than most wave clouds. If anyone has identification for this cloud type, please let me know so I can update this page.

In Fact, I liked these clouds so much I decided to turn them into evil clouds. Perhaps something you would see on December 21, 2012, when the world ends. Clouds like these are excellent for Photoshop color adjustment and other things. Try it yourself, they also look good in blues and reds and other colors, just please make sure to attribute the image (give credit, such as a link to this page) if you use it elsewhere.

UPDATE: These type of cloud formations are caused by gravity waves according to what I’ve read about the physics behind this kind of cloud formation. While the name does not seem obvious, the description of it’s effects and how it affects cloud formation and weird cloud shapes makes sense. If you do a search on the term you will find some interesting information. If you feel there is some sort of other mechanism at work I am interested in hearing it.

Weird Wave Clouds

I had to mess with this photo as well, again going for the red doom look.

I’ve found similar clouds on other websites, some even more photoshopped looking than this! The ‘Strange clouds spotted by the Cloud Appreciation Society’ page, Photo #3 from that site is a great example.

This video embedded below is from the Iowa Environmental Mesonet, you’ve definitely gotta hit the play button, very cool! I recommend clicking the link and checking out the source of the video for more information, it opens in a new window and you can come back here to browse more.

As usual, you can click on the photos to see larger versions of them.

Another Day, Another Thunder Storm

JonC — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 03:35:28 +0000

After weeks of nightly, hours long, rainy downpours they have subsided a bit, but now we’re getting these daily thunderstorms ripping across the Catskills and through town. I posted a video of one the other day which was pretty fantastic and very active for our area. The thunderstorm video below is in the daytime and mostly shows the quantity of rain that comes with these storms. You can see the Scott’s PatchMaster patch in there also after about 5 or 6 weeks of growth. It’s doing well, but of course it looks better than the rest of the lawn.

We will be over-seeding the lawn in September sometime, or possibly just ripping it out and seeding from scratch. I still haven’t decided which is a better way to go. Ripping out the old lawn and laying new seed would definitely be in order since this old lawn has been here for years upon years, and I don’t think there’s much that could make it look good or feel young again. It is certainly a lot more work though, and I would need to bring in more topsoil for some more spots where it’s thin over the rock base.

The gutters on the house are in terrible shape. The one you’ll see in the video is a newer one, but it was not put in properly. There should be a drop in height of the gutter from the non-downspout side to the downspout side, I think whoever did this one just put it in along the edge and went ‘good!’.

You can see the gallons of water pouring out over the edge of the gutters and even at the downspout end of the gutter, although some of the plants in the planter seem to benefit from it. It needs to be repaired to get the water away from the house though, the sump pump has been working overtime to keep things dry in the basement.

I think it’s kind of odd that the water is pouring out from the downspout end of the gutter. I’m guessing it’s plugged with leaves or something, I’ll probably have to get up there with the ladder on Saturday and see what’s really going on with it.

Also near the end of the video you can see where the blue stone pavers have been pulled up in preparation for the placement of a new concrete sidewalk. I found someone in the area who was working on a stone wall and they called up and helped me get rid of this bluestone. I still have some big bluestone curb and slab pieces sitting around, so if you’re in the mid-hudson area and interested let me know.

Anyways, heres the thunderstorm video, if you can’t see the embedded YouTube video below, just click the link to go directly to YouTube to watch it, you won’t leave the site.

If you enjoy thunder storm videos, check out my YouTube channel on the right. I have a few from the last couple of years posted there that you may enjoy watching.

Awesome New York Thunderstorm

JonC — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:47:21 +0000

We had a great thunderstorm here in ulster, new york tonight. I got in the truck and shot some video since I don’t have the observatory built into the house yet. Most of the strikes are flashes and such, but it’s still a good video to watch if you like thunderstorms. I’d highly recommend turning down your volume, for some reason it came out really loud when I added it to youtube

Thunderstorm Video 06-25-09 on YouTube– (turn down your speakers/headphones it’s quite loud) or watch below.

P.S. As a side note, do you have enough lighting protection on your home? This isn’t an advertisement, it’s just a really good idea to get some surge protection and other things in place. It may not save your electronics, but it could save you and your house! When I see heavy thunderstorms like this it always concerns me that power or cable lines may be struck and cause an electrical surge to wreak a lot of havoc on electronics or worst yet cause a fire in the wall of my house.

Jon's Home Blog » Weather

Preparing for Hurricane Irene in Eastern New York

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Okay We’ve Gotten Quite a Bit More Snow

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