Last week's Friday Five
Sep. 20th, 2018 01:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyI'm almost a week later but why not:
1. Have you ever experienced a hurricane firsthand?
Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 - although technically Sandy was a tropical storm but arriving with the tides caused more damage.
In 2011 I was living with my parents and they live in Zone 1 for hurricane. There was a mandatory evacuation call, so we evacuated to Brooklyn to Zone 2. My friend Yeva volunteered her apartment since she was staying elsewhere and we spent a few days there. There wasn't too much damage from it - just a lot of rain and wind.
Sandy in 2012 was a different story. I was living in Brooklyn with Bear at the time, in Zone 2. All we got on the day are high winds and rain but we never lost power. My parents had the evacuation order again but they decided to stay put because of Irene and how not that bad that was. My Dad did move the books from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. They got very lucky because the water came to 2 inches to their house. Good thing their development was elevated during construction. A lot of houses in their neighborhood were not so lucky and to this day many were closed and bought out by government to be demolished. There was even a death on a street very close to them. My Dad's cousin's basement flooded and they lost all photographs. My parents did lose power for two weeks, and spend the 2nd week with us in Brooklyn because it got very cold that week. There were a lot of fallen trees everywhere. Bear's car got its side mirror kicked off. On the second day we drove to Coney Island to see how my grandparents were since phones were not working and we knew there was no power there. There was sand so far in and it did look like a zombie apocalypse close to their house. It was hard to drive there. We climbed the eight floors with a flashlight. Luckily they were ok because they had food and water and their home attendant actually came and brought them stuff. The city was shut down for a week with no subway. For weeks afterward many people needed help.
2. Have you ever experienced outside heat over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celcius)?
Yes, of course. New York occasionally gets that hot in the summer, although thankfully not this summer. it's basically air conditioner time.
3. When and where was the coldest temperature you have ever experienced?
When Bear and I went to Grand Canyon in Arizona in January of 2013. That was so super cold. 20F I think. I felt colder. (even in Phoenix it was 32C) I'm sure there were also really cold winters in Belarus when I was a kid but I was all bundled up and running around.
4. Is your household prepared for a possible power outage of two to seven days?
We have enough food and bottled water, I believe. And lots of flashlights. We would probably go to either my parents or Bear's parents though.
5. Do you have a go bag?
Not as such. Bear does have an emergency apocalypse suitcase with all kinds of goodies like a wind-up radio, tablet to put in water to purify it, special water straws - all kinds of stuff like that. He went though a period of disaster preparedness. I do have a lose plan to pack documents but I should probably think about it more. It is just rare to have a disaster.
1. Have you ever experienced a hurricane firsthand?
Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 - although technically Sandy was a tropical storm but arriving with the tides caused more damage.
In 2011 I was living with my parents and they live in Zone 1 for hurricane. There was a mandatory evacuation call, so we evacuated to Brooklyn to Zone 2. My friend Yeva volunteered her apartment since she was staying elsewhere and we spent a few days there. There wasn't too much damage from it - just a lot of rain and wind.
Sandy in 2012 was a different story. I was living in Brooklyn with Bear at the time, in Zone 2. All we got on the day are high winds and rain but we never lost power. My parents had the evacuation order again but they decided to stay put because of Irene and how not that bad that was. My Dad did move the books from the 1st floor to the 2nd floor. They got very lucky because the water came to 2 inches to their house. Good thing their development was elevated during construction. A lot of houses in their neighborhood were not so lucky and to this day many were closed and bought out by government to be demolished. There was even a death on a street very close to them. My Dad's cousin's basement flooded and they lost all photographs. My parents did lose power for two weeks, and spend the 2nd week with us in Brooklyn because it got very cold that week. There were a lot of fallen trees everywhere. Bear's car got its side mirror kicked off. On the second day we drove to Coney Island to see how my grandparents were since phones were not working and we knew there was no power there. There was sand so far in and it did look like a zombie apocalypse close to their house. It was hard to drive there. We climbed the eight floors with a flashlight. Luckily they were ok because they had food and water and their home attendant actually came and brought them stuff. The city was shut down for a week with no subway. For weeks afterward many people needed help.
2. Have you ever experienced outside heat over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celcius)?
Yes, of course. New York occasionally gets that hot in the summer, although thankfully not this summer. it's basically air conditioner time.
3. When and where was the coldest temperature you have ever experienced?
When Bear and I went to Grand Canyon in Arizona in January of 2013. That was so super cold. 20F I think. I felt colder. (even in Phoenix it was 32C) I'm sure there were also really cold winters in Belarus when I was a kid but I was all bundled up and running around.
4. Is your household prepared for a possible power outage of two to seven days?
We have enough food and bottled water, I believe. And lots of flashlights. We would probably go to either my parents or Bear's parents though.
5. Do you have a go bag?
Not as such. Bear does have an emergency apocalypse suitcase with all kinds of goodies like a wind-up radio, tablet to put in water to purify it, special water straws - all kinds of stuff like that. He went though a period of disaster preparedness. I do have a lose plan to pack documents but I should probably think about it more. It is just rare to have a disaster.
The whole thing reminded me of a long quote...
Date: 2018-09-22 01:45 am (UTC)It will even live in New York, though it's hard to know why. In the winter time the temperature falls well below the legal minimum, or rather it would do if anybody had the common sense to set a legal minimum. The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.
In the summer it's too darn hot. It's one thing to be the sort of life form that thrives on heat and finds, as the Frastrans do, that the temperature range between 40,000 and 40,004 is very equable, but it's quite another to be the sort of animal that has to wrap itself up in lots of other animals at one point in your planet's orbit, and then find, half an orbit later, that your skin's bubbling.
Spring is over-rated. A lot of the inhabitants of New York will honk on mightily about the pleasures of spring, but if they actually knew the first thing about the pleasures of spring they would know of at least five thousand nine hundred and eighty-three better places to spend it than New York, and that's just on the same latitude.
Fall, though, is the worst. Few things are worse than fall in New York. Some of the things that live in the lower intestines of rats would disagree, but most of the things that live in the lower intestines of rats are highly disagreeable anyway, so their opinion can and should be discounted. When it's fall in New York, the air smells as if someone's been frying goats in it, and if you are keen to breathe, the best plan is to open a window and stick your head in a building.
Re: The whole thing reminded me of a long quote...
Date: 2018-09-23 08:38 pm (UTC)Re: The whole thing reminded me of a long quote...
Date: 2018-09-23 10:03 pm (UTC)There aren't that many places that have great temp all year round, I found. I actually went and looked, one miserable day. If wiki can be trusted, Tasmania seems like a pleasant place weatherwise? Pity about the rest of its stats