I have some friends on the Jersey shore, where the damage is truly terrible. The section where their houses are is south of Mantoloking and is inaccessible except from the air and by boat: both the Mantoloking and the Seaside Heights bridges end in the water. Most of Mantoloking is washed away, and part of it burned down. It was just yesterday that we saw pictures which show that their houses are probably still there and in decent enough condition. At least almost everyone had sense enough to leave.

I want to remind anyone who hasn’t seen it yet that Episcopal Relief and Development has set up a special fund for Sandy, both for in the USA and in Haiti.

My husband works in Long Island three days a week and at home two days a week.  He tried today to go up but he said most of the major roads were a nightmare because of no power at traffic lights.  He decided to cut over to Rt. 130.  As he was driving he came to a section with 20 power line pole in a row knocked down along the road like toothpicks.  Gas lines are also running 1 hour to 1.5 hour long.  He decided to conserve gas and come back home since there is no guarantee he can get more gas when he gets to Long Island.

So instead he is outside chainsawing our 60 foot oak which is lying on the lawn.

This comment is not about NJ but, I was sad to read just now that the death toll on Staten Island keeps climbing, including 2 young boys swept out of their mother’s arms when their car got caught in the flooding.

From the ABC7 twitter feed:
Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro confirms four more bodies found - at least 19 dead on Staten Island

The storm surge maps had shown the extreme danger for Staten Island.  See for example the storm surge graphic I posted at Lent & Beyond. on Sunday.

Staten Island was covered in red in that map indicating extreme surge.

BUT, I never heard the risk to Staten Island discussed much in the media briefings.  Folks were focused on lower Manhattan, Coney Island, Rockaway, Long Island and the Jersey Shore. 

The tragedy in Staten Island is awful.

Very cool.  Just saw a Tweet from ABC News - several NYC weatherman will be ringing the closing bell at the NY Stock Exchange today to honor them for their work.

So excited for @LeeGoldbergABC7 @SamChampion @Evansweather ringing the closing bell at the #NYSE today. @GMA @eyewitnessnyc #SandyABC7

One of the forecasters had hardly been home for 10 days.  Check out this REALLY cute picture of a note and treat his daughter left for him!
http://pic.twitter.com/HZYHc728

AWWWWWWW!  So cute!

A good State by State guide with details about Sandy’s impact
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/state-by-state-guide-to-hurricane-sandy/

On the up side, on the other thread I mentioned how the township came and pushed our giant oak up out of the street and onto our lawn, destroying, among other things, our maple tree.  Well—good news.  My husband found it unbroken but bent and pushed over and cleared away the oak branch around it and has tried to re-seat it and has it all proped up.  So hopefully it will re-root itself by spring.  Fingers crossed.

It will be just fine, Catholic Mom.  I hope a lot of bark wasn’t scraped on it.

It looks good from the outside.  Time will tell.

Now I have to figure out what to plant to replace a giant oak.  Something that grows very fast.

I don’t know how a River Birch would grow up there but they are great down here in SC.  Beautiful bark and they grow very quickly topping out at about 50 feet.  You could plant two about 6 feet apart and they would do very nicely that close together.

Here is a page on it.  It would grow nicely in your area.  Very ornamental and most resistant of all the birches to the bore Beatle.
http://www.arborday.org/trees/treeguide/TreeDetail.cfm?ID=22

I love river birch.  Almost planted them instead of the maple.  Our neighbor has a spectacular group on the side of his lawn that I really enjoy.  You may not recall, but after Irene last year we had a “Halloween snowstorm”  (we are pretty much getting kicked here in NJ recently) with 10 inches of completely wet snow that was snapping all the trees that still had leaves on them.  Our neighbor wasn’t home and his birchs were complete bent over with their tops frozen to the ground.  My son and I went over with brooms and spent a half hour beating the birches with brooms until we got enough snow off to free them and got them to more or less get upright again.  So I figure I have a part-ownership in the birches now.   For this space, however, I think my husband wants to plant one big solid thing, like a horse chestnut or an elm.  (Or whatever hybrid passes for an elm now).  There is a beautiful alley of elms leading into Princeton which is only 1 miles from our house.  If you google “Princeton Elm Allee” it will be the first thing that comes up.

Those are pretty!  I hope you find a good one!

Catholic Mom, you may want to guy down the maple on the weak side. From what I recall from your picture album it’s fairly mature, but may still take to being guyed. Obviously, an arborist would best advise you, but it may be a while before one is free to help.
Until then, I found this site to be informative:
http://www.myminnesotawoods.umn.edu/2008/12/staking-and-guying-trees-best-materials-and-technique/

Corn grows pretty fast.  All you have to do is, after two weeks, lay down at the base of the plant, and take pictures of the sky.  Watch that plant take off and be proud of the only tree like it on your block!

Thanks for the info on saving wind blown trees.  We didn’t realize water was so important.  Hope I haven’t waited too late.  I went out and soaked it today.  Township showed up to cut the oak, worked for 10 minutes, said it was too big a job and would come back later and left. :(  Hopefully we’ll see them again.

I see Bloomberg finally had the sense to cancel the marathon, but only after everybody flew into NY.  Now two groups people hate him.  People are in desperate straits in Staten Island and they’re sitting there watching two enormous generators being used to power the press tent while they sit freezing in the dark.  Bloomberg couldn’t be elected dog catcher in Staten Island right now.