As of November 16th, from
Energy.gov:
"The
10th Hurricane Sandy-Nor'Easter situation report is now available. As of 9:00 am EST, there are 2,129 customers without power in the State of New York. This is a decrease of 22,932 customer outages from
Tuesday's Situation Report. The combined total peak customer outages from Hurricane Sandy and the Nor’easter (reported in the Situation Reports) are 8,661,527: 8,511,251 from Hurricane Sandy and 150,276 from the Nor’easter Storm, respectively."
I refuse to call these monsters by their nicknames. "Sandy" - such a
friendly little nickname for such a vicious beast. The trend towards 'hurricane casual' is even lamer than big business and government's plethgora of exclamation marks. What next, storms called Spot, Top, Ace, Sis, Bub, or Mom? At this point I wouldn't doubt it.
Much more appropriate than these Sandys would be those bad old gods and bible names. You can start with the As and work from there. Start with that god "Az...." something then on to Beelzebub (or, BeezleBub if preferred). When you get to J there'll be no shortage of these badass names. Use those "wicked" places, too, like Hades and Sodom. Or Torquemada and Cotton Mather. How about Quetzalcoatl, Hitler, or Inquisition? Come on, people, let's get real here!
(Today, November 19, more flooding is expected for the hardest-hit regions. But watch CNN, etc. put a happy Thanksgiving spin on it by Thursday: "I shivered with no power for three weeks but kept alive grazing on grass in the backyard...but now that the weather's warmed up and the ground's soft, I can give my dead children a proper Christian burial with this branch of the tree that conked me and broke my arm, but which is Miraculously scooped out just right for digging on its end! And the other arm still works just fine! God is Good!")