...Out of the Wasteland...

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 11/01/2012 9:57pm

This was me the last 3 days. V8 and all. I'm not kidding.

Rough estimate is I hand carried at least 40 gallons of high octane fuel to my home to keep my food edible and barely heat my home.

Spent the day cutting a 20 foot cedar (crushed my compost box) up with a hand saw...so much devastation just here in my neck of the woods, but largely from trees and downed lines.

Many friends now homeless...just got power back a few hours ago. If you live in NJ and need help, try to get me a message and I'll do what I can.

...I have food, warmth, gasoline, and love to share. We can even spar if you want.

**Sam Browning** · Posted On: 11/01/2012 11:51pm

Wow, how is the disaster relief going?

I'm glad your power is back on.

***battlefields*** · Posted On: 11/01/2012 11:54pm

Keep well, bro. Good luck with the road gangs. My advice is to take out their leader, Tina Turner. Also, if you have a car, tyres make good clothes.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 11/02/2012 12:23am

Originally Posted by Sam Browning

Wow, how is the disaster relief going?

I'm glad your power is back on.

It's going. The two biggest energy companies in Jersey are scrambling to restore power and giving ridiculous guesstimates as to restoration time.

When the lights went out (was it the 29th? I've lost track of the days) I was told restoration was expected 11-5. My neighbor was told 11-5, then today they changed it to 11-9, but changed it to 11-3 for me.

By 8pm we both had power. Just proves how chaotic it is...instead of giving estimates, PSEG should change all their estimates to "ASAFP".

For the people on the shore...no such luck. The infrastructure there is either totally destroyed or needs rebuilding. Here it was just moving trees and replacing lines and transformers. The shore towns have few houses left standing to power at all...lots of sewage, broken mains, houses filled with sand...

The Jersey Shore is just Gone.

Lots of dead people yet to be found, for sure...some of those houses that aren't standing had people in them. Some of them blew up from ruptured gas mains....

I'm positive at least a few generator-related casualties are going to make the news soon. None of the thousands of folks who rushed to buy them this week know the first thing about how to use them safely. I saw them in garages with the door open (even though the generator manuals and stickers on the actual gas tanks say NO), I saw them left running open in the rain...

The worst situation post-storm is gasoline. Most stations have no power, the few that do have no gas, and people are lined up by the hundreds in either cars, or on foot with cans, to fill up. Police are stationed at every operating station because as expected...people are fighting over the juice.

On the other hand, there are a lot of great people at work in the state right now, from the Feds down to local EMS and line workers. People are offering shelter and food to complete strangers.

The full toll won't be known for months I think.

**Mr. Machette** · Posted On: 11/02/2012 12:34am

Holy crap! Hang in there man. Prayers sent for the whole coast.

**Bezmond** · Posted On: 11/02/2012 12:46am

Stay safe buddy. Hope things get straight for you as quickly as possible.

**W. Rabbit** · Posted On: 11/02/2012 12:46am

This fire in Queens tells quite a story...110 homes gone from one 6-alarm fire. This is just a few blocks of the hundreds of miles of devastation. You might have seen this already..if not...just a glimpse, really.

This is one tiny slice of New York City folks...

**BJMills** · Posted On: 11/02/2012 12:58am

Originally Posted by battlefields

Keep well, bro. Good luck with the road gangs. My advice is to take out their leader, Tina Turner. Also, if you have a car, tyres make good clothes.

Ooops I tried to positive rep this post for its awesomeness and messed up with my fat fingers on my iPhone. If a mod could fix that I'd be eternally grateful.

Sorry battlefields.

**slamdunc** · Posted On: 11/02/2012 5:58am

If the majority have and maintain your sharing, caring attitude, the relief effort will move forward rapidly. I wish you the best.

**Israfel** · Posted On: 11/02/2012 6:11am

As a lifetime FL resident who has endured numerous devastating hurricanes let me say for what it's worth I understand what you're going through bro, only we're generally somewhat better prepared for this kind of **** down here...I hope you and your loved ones make it through safe and a word of advice: more people generally die after the actual storm from dumbass **** like careening through intersections where the traffic lights have been downed, please be careful.