Click on the thumbnail image below to be taken to the gallery of full-size images (due to technical challenges, I could not get all the images embedded in this post).
First, as a New Jersey resident, I have to give kudos to the weather forecasters, who did a phenomenal job of predicting the track of this storm. While they couldn't lessen its damage, they certainly gave people time to prepare for the worst, and their prognostications, as hyperbolic as they may have seemed, were pretty much spot on. I also have to say, though I agree with my governor on almost exactly nothing, from what I have been able to surmise (which, without TV or internet, and with extremely spotty cell service, has come from limited media access), Governor Christie has mostly focused on his job in this crisis, which is to help steward NJ through the disaster, its aftermath, and recovery efforts, and he has generally avoided the politicking and bullying to which he is sometimes prone (with the notable exception of some bickering with the mayor of Atlantic City).
Second, I have to say how grateful and fortunate I feel to have escaped the storm unscathed, and how much I feel for fellow New Jerseyans, and other folks up and down the eastern seaboard, who weren't nearly as lucky. My town suffered almost none of the flooding that was experienced along the Atlantic, as well as in low-lying river basin towns, including in several very nearby ones like Moonachie and South Hackensack which are apparently mostly underwater.
I even still have electricity (though my television, internet, and phone service are gone, and cell phone service is even worse than normal). But thousands of other residents in my town are without electricity, many also without heat and water, and PSE&G has informed them that it will be "at least a week" until they get their power restored. At last check, I believe there were upwards of a million NJ homes without electricity.
There have been some heartrending, dramatic, and iconic photos of Hurricane Sandy's impact, and because of my good geographical fortune, I didn't personally witness anything of that magnitude. Nonetheless, I thought I'd share a few photos of my neighborhood in Fort Lee, NJ, as it looks on the day after Hurricane Sandy.
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What you're seeing (link): (1) Building damage; (2) Fallen tree; (3) Pink insulation, like tumbleweeds scattered all over the streets; (4) Downed lamp post; (5, 6, 7) How do you close the George Washington Bridge, the busiest bridge in the country? Why, with a fleet of dump trucks, of course! (8) Bank of America Drive-Through; (9) An eerily empty tollbooth plaza at the Lower Level entry to the George Washington Bridge; (10) A Verizon Wireless store; (11, 12) The brick facade of a local strip mall came crashing down; (13, 14) So did a utility pole across the street, but its fall was broken by an adjacent building; (15) A toy pig, laying in a puddle; (16) The lines at 7-Eleven, one of the few stores with power and open, wrapped around the store; (17) Nearby, Starbucks suffered some minor damage and was closed. Caffeine addicts milled outside, longingly peering into the windows; (18) The night after Hurricane Sandy: Upper Manhattan glows in the background, but Edgewater, NJ in the foreground is cast in total darkness.