Hurricane Sandy's Impact on New Jersey's Birds

That is the title of the lead article in "The Osprey", the newsletter of the Monmouth County Audubon Society.  Some interesting facts from the article:

• Since late October falls between the time when summer residents have migrated and most winter residents arrive, there should have been little direct impact on those populations.
• It is almost certain that the flooding tides caused mortality among rodent populations, thus reducing the prey base for wintering birds of prey.
• High winds stripped trees of fruit and seeds sending such wild bird staples as acorns, wild grape, poison ivy berries to the forest floor where snow and ice may put them out of reach.
• There may be an issue for cavity nesting species like woodpeckers if many of the dead standing trees went down in the storm.
• Coastal nesting habitat for endangered, beach nesting birds like Piping Plover, Least Tern, and Black Skimmer has been damaged in many places.

Update

Just an update on what has been going on the last few weeks.  We are finally settling down a bit, though there is still a lot of work to be done on the condo.  The molding was delivered today and we'll paint it before heading for Sanibel, Florida on Thursday - YAY!!!  The trip was planned long before the flood and the R&R will be really appreciated.  Then when we get back, the contractor will replace some doors and install the molding.  Then they will be done and we can install the ceramic tile floor in the entertainment room and finish the molding in there.  Then all we have to do is move back into the rooms and get our lives back to normal.  With Christmas coming up fast, we won't finish until sometime in the new year.

Speaking of holidays, we did something completely different for Thanksgiving - we went out for dinner at Rooney's in Long Branch.  It was so nice, we may make that a new tradition. 

Something else we did since I posted last, we picked up our new Chevy Volt.  We are really enjoying driving it, and seeing how much gas we are saving.  We have Sandy to thank for forcing us to get a new car, probably several years before we would have otherwise.  We are leasing it, which is a first for us.  We figure the batteries might not last for as long as we normally hold on to a car, plus the technology should continue to improve.  Who knows what will be available in another 3 years.

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.

Back to NJ

Drove back to NJ today so we could go to chorus rehearsal this evening.  We'll be here until next Thursday to get one more rehearsal in before we head back to camp.

Where are we?

Haven't posted for a while, so thought I would catch up.  We drove to NJ on July 13th so W would be ready for his surgery on the 16th.  Have been laying low so he can recover.  He is doing extremely well and we will head back up to camp next week.
I did get out yesterday for an expedition to the Burlington County Historical Society.  W has lots of Quaker ancestors who were part of that community in the 1670's.  The woman who works in the library there is a gold mine.  She knew of every family I mentioned and pulled out resources for most of them.  Can't wait to get it all in my database.

In New Jersey

We drove to NJ today because W has doctors' appointments tomorrow.  On our way home we did some shopping for things that are easier to find in NJ than in the north country.  We went to our favorite pizza place for dinner.  Then later in the evening, once the thermometer finally dropped below 90 degrees - ugh - we took a long walk on the beach.  Then we stopped on the way home for ice cream.  A New Jersey kind of day.  We drive back to camp on Monday.

Back to NJ

We drove back to NJ today for a doctor's appointment.  We'll spend the weekend with family then back to camp on Monday.