Sandy's Impact

[BlueDemKev]

Okay...we know that Sandy will cause conditions to deteriorate along the east coast in the early part of this coming week. However, once storms make landfall, they die out relatively quickly. So even if there is damage and power outages in the middle of this week, wouldn't most essential services be back up and running by the following Tuesday (at least so people will be able to travel to the polls and vote)?

[rightsideout]

1. Actually, the storm could have lingering problems

Our local utility in DC, PEPCO just said we can expect power outages through the election.

The last big storm that caused alot of damage over the summer had people without power for 10 days. We were without power of 4 days. Some people couldn't get out of their neighborhoods for several days because of downed power lines and trees. That happened to us although we could take a several block detour to get out of the neighborhood.

But the worst should be over by Wednesday and Thursday. So by the time election day arrives the polling place should be all open and most of the neighborhoods should be cleared out enough for people to get in and out. Power outages may be a lingering problem and how that effects people may change their priorities in getting to the polls.

We were told today that in Maryland Early Voting which started today and runs through this coming week could be affected and they may have to close polling places down depending on the damage. So it could affect Early Voting but not necessarily Election Day.

[k8conant]

4. PEPCO is still horrible, isn't it?

Potomac Edison can be lousy too. Fortunately during the Derecho we never lost power but houses just across the road were out through the 4th of July. We lost our cell service (T-Mobile) for 5 days (at the house) because the tower didn't have power. The landline was only out for 24 hours (along with my DSL).

[garthranzz]

2. That depends

Living in New Orleans, I have a little experience with hurricanes.

Sandy is a low category 1, which means the overall damage shouldn't be too bad. We had one of those earlier this year. Getting power back up depends on what's interfering. Here, there were lots of tree branches on lines, as well as downed lines. It takes time to eyeball line-by-line. The grid is vulnerable and sensitive.

There may be flooding. Or snow. This could hamper efforts as well.

Power might be out in some places up to a week or more. That would affect the election. On the other hand, power could be restored within 48 hours.

The East Coast is much more populated than the Gulf Coast, so anywhere it hits will have a major impact on a large population center. If emergency response is good and coordinated, problems can be minimized.

In short, there's no way to know. Let's pray it heads out to sea.

Let's hope the Frankenstorm doesn't meet the Vampire State Building. (Sorry, I'm proud of that pun.)

[kestrel91316]

3. They think it may stall over NY or NEngland. And if it causes a lot of damage,

like prolonged power outages, flooding, damaged transportation capabilities, then it could be very bad for quite a while.

It's going to turn cold and maybe become a blizzard.