Dolly Quilt

Even though Hurricane Sandy washed out the quilt guild's harvest supper this year, we were encouraged to complete the dolly quilts we make for charity.  Here is the one I turned in.

Destruction

We haven't had a lot of time or energy to check out the destruction meted out by Hurricane Sandy outside of our little world.  But we did walk down to the marina and saw that one of the docks has been destroyed, though the others are in pretty good shape.

This sailboat definitely has problems - I believe there is supposed to be more than a tattered sail above water.  There is another sailboat out in the middle of the river which apparently dragged its anchor and has been sitting there since the storm.

Today we ventured to the Long Branch boardwalk.  It used to be on these supports.  It is now a pile of rubble on the other side of the street.

News from our little world is that our sheetrock is installed and the first coat of spackle is done.  I actually did some quilting today, just so I could feel some semblance of normalcy.  Of course I did it on the dining table.  It will be a long time before my quilting room is usable again.

Status

They started hanging sheetrock today.  Not sure how much farther they are going to get since they are having trouble finding insulation.  Thank goodness we aren't trying to do it on our own. 
We went to the music store this afternoon to start looking at digital pianos and W has already chosen the one he wants - a Clavinova by Yamaha.  An electronic instrument makes so much sense for us - since the condo gets so hot and humid when we are away for the summer, it is hard on an acoustic piano.  Plus, this one comes apart so we can carry it upstairs in the event of another flood.  Afraid that is now going to be a part of our calculation as we buy replacements for things. 

Status

The sheetrock is finally all removed, leaving the entire ground floor open into the garage.  Thank goodness the temperatures have been moderate - with a springlike 65 today.  Today I painted Drylok on the exposed concrete block.  Most of the moisture left was coming from the outside, not a result of the flooding inside.  Hopefully the paint will block some of that.  The big news is that we have decided to hire someone to do the sheetrock/taping/spackling.  The job was just getting too big and this crew is doing a lot of the work in neighboring units and seems to be good.  Now I just need a call back from them to schedule the work and then we should be able to relax for a while.  We'll still install the ceramic tile floor in the entertainment room and do the painting.

More Progress

Fortunately the nor'easter did no further damage.  No flooding here, but lots of snow, especially west of here where there was a foot in some places.  Hope that is not a harbinger of things to come this winter.  We've had quite enough of Mother Nature already.

Electricity came on last evening and cable/internet today.  Furnace replacement was moved up to tomorrow and the washer and dryer arrive on Sunday.  Then it is "just" a matter of sheetrock, taping, spackling, painting, laying the tile floor, replacing the molding, and replacing some doors.  And can't start any of that until the walls are thoroughly dry.  The furnace should help a lot with that.  It's going to be a long slog.  Not sure how much time we'll have for the holidays this year.

Hurricane Sandy

The following says it all. 

We spent Oct 28th emptying as much as we could from the bottom level of our condo.  Then we evacuated to a hotel in PA not too far from A's house.  The storm hit Monday the 29th and Wednesday the 31st we drove back home to assess the damage.   Here is the high water mark in the garage - 19 inches.

We removed the soaked carpet from the entertainment room and hired someone to remove the soaked piano.  The rest of the furniture in that room we had put up on blocks so it is ok.

We have now removed all of the sheetrock from the bottom half of all the walls on the lower floor.  Have to wait for the cinder block and studs to dry before we can replace it.  And that requires power (who knows when it will be restored) and a furnace, which is due to be fixed on the 14th.  This is what my quilting room looks like at the moment.  At least the tile floor there survived.



The cleanup effort was amazing.  Large front-end loaders were picking up debris by Sunday

We feel very lucky. We lost the 40-year-old piano because we couldn't lift it out of the flood.  We lost the 19-year-old car, knowing that was a possibility when we left it behind.  We lost the carpet in the entertainment room, but had been wanting to replace it with ceramic tile anyway.  And we lost my cabinets in the quilting room - too many and too big to move.  We'll worry about replacing them after all the work is done.  It will be many months before we get everything back in order.

We are now back in PA having fled the nor'easter that descended on us today.  We don't think our property will flood again, but we could not afford to lose another car so we left just in case.  There are no hotel rooms anywhere with so many folks without power and still evacuated.  So we and S (who received a mandatory evacuation notice) are at A's for the night.  We have to be back home tomorrow to meet with the FEMA inspector.