Sandy

NOAA’s GOES-13 satellite captured this visible image of Hurricane Sandy battering the U.S. East coast on Monday, October 29 at 9:10 a.m. EDT (13:10 UTC). Sandy’s center was about 310 miles south-southeast of New York City. Tropical Storm force winds are about 1,000 miles in diameter.
Image Credit: NASA GOES Project, via EarthSky.

As I look out my window now, it's storm-dark as evening falls. We've had blustery winds all day and the waves on Lake Michigan in Kenosha County have reached as high as 22 feet—people there are sandbagging lakefront homes. Incredibly, here in Wisconsin—a third of the way into the North American landmass—what we're experiencing is the very farthest edge of the massive storm system known as Sandy.

(In the NOAA photo above, we're just to the west and about a third of the way up the coast of Lake Michigan, visible to the left of the storm's western edge.)

It's impossible to say anything appropriately scaled to the extent of this huge storm or the damage already caused by it. While all of those affected directly by the storm should be in our thoughts, perhaps it's permissable to note that many of our TOP reader friends along the Eastern seaboard—especially in the Northeast—aren't with us today. They've got bigger worries and in many cases, no doubt, no power.

For those Americans with electricity, there's an NBC Special tonight at 10:00 p.m. (9:00 Central Time) about the storm and its aftermath. I'll be watching. There are some photojournalistic aspects of the storm coverage we might discuss, but...later. In the meantime, on behalf of all of us, our wishes, our concern, and our thoughts are with all our readers and friends under the pall of Sandy's far-reaching spiral.

—Mike

Comments

[Michael]

The interesting for Kenosha (my local) will be when the wind stops. The shore was lined with people today taking pictures and video of the waves. At the time they were 3 foot high.

What everybody was missing was the fact that the bits dumped just off the shore were visible when the waves hit. They normally aren't. I wonder how high the "tide" will be. The tides are phenomenon known as a seiche. They have been known to reach heights of 8 feet on the Great Lakes. The parking lot at one of the bath houses is about 8 feet above the lake, the bath house not so much. It used to have a swimming lagoon.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

And, for the on-topic portion of our thread, I'm rather expecting The Big Picture to do a Sandy edition soon, and looking forward to it.

[David]

ack, This Sandy kept me up all night, raking right into my folks house on the michigan side of the lake, near new buffalo..right in the lake effect rain line at Sandy's western edge..pounded yesterday and today. The waves were enormous and successful. I came up here to check on some leaks and got what i deserved. My sister lives in New Jersey, she got whipped like a glue horse last night, lots of trees down up and down her block, no power,,no grilled sandwiches on the doo-hickey.

I was watching the national weather service mosaic radar of the whole country, cool page if you dont know it already, link:

http://radar.weather.gov/Conus/full_loop.php

Amazing to track it, watch it come right over to ME and start wailing on my parents crib, which is rickety by the way. In case all you were wondering..that's why it leaks. It leaks more than it doesn't leak.

I can't believe how freaking big this thing is...it seemed to shed it's skin and get bigger and then it morphed into a land bound, starched collar, low pressure system with a demonstration for all the homesteaders in it's vicinity.

I know people get hurt and have real setbacks because of stuff like this but, I love the weather, so damn cool.

[jrapdx]

Wow. Visiting in the Washington, DC area this past week, the return home was scheduled for Monday, but Monday afternoon it wasn't possible to fly out of National, so forced to wait until today. I'll give a plug to Delta--the only airline flying out of the DC area on Tuesday.

Yes, indeed a ferocious storm and an impressively descriptive picture from NOAA. Feeling the hotel vibrate pounded by the wind, and sitting in the darkness that followed failure of the electricity supply grid were already more than convincing.

Let's keep a good thought for the millions still caught up in it.

JRA

[Lynn]

22-foot waves... on a lake? Living on the edge of the Pacific ocean, we sometimes expect that sort of thing. Amazing you can get waves that big on a lake.

[Ed Grossman]

Checking in from the Southern coast of Mass (just off Cape Cod). Sandy's impact here was modest compared to elsewhere. Having been through worse, my thoughts are with those who were in great peril and remain under duress.

Events like this are both frightening and awe-inspiring. In photography we control "important" variables like focal length, shutter speed, etc. In real life, the important variables are beyond our reach.

[Jim]

Well Sandy sure scared the heck out of me. In the suburbs of Philadelphia, the damage was really hit or miss. Thankfully, we never got hit with really heavy flooding of the Schuylkill River. I'm just thankful, it could have been much, much worse and my heart goes out to our neighbors in New York and New Jersey.

[Dennis Ng]

shock about one tall boat try to outrun the storm 18 century technology i cannot judge he captain statement that it is more safe for the boat to be at sea than in harbour as he has passed away i just say be rest in peace -- most of his crew was saved

[Mike Johnston]

"Amazing you can get waves that big on a lake."

Of course it's really an inland sea. I suppose they're only called "lakes" because they're freshwater. The "fetch" (distance the waves have to develop) at Kenosha is almost 120 miles.

Mike

[Peter]

I walked over to Manhattan from Brooklyn Tuesday night and took these.

http://hookstrapped.viewbook.com/album/nyafterdarksandyremix#1

[Ray]

Right in the teeth of it Monday night;Pretty gnarly. We might get power back tonight, since we're only a mile from our utility's main office. Some of the out laying areas are being told 7-10 days, maybe, until power is restored. I've sat through a couple of hurricanes, at the beach, a hundred miles inland for this one, and there were a few times, for the first time, I was sure the place was about to come down around me. And the devastation further east is unbelievable.

I'm thinking an interesting photo project would be the little squatters camps that are popping up any place with power and wifi, as we struggle to maintain our electronic connections to the outside world. The bread store chain, the coffee shop chain, and the bookstore chain are all carpeted with folks surrounded by their e-oracles. Self structuring pop-up tribes of strangers, helping each other get connected.

[robert e]

Thanks, Mike. Center City Philadelphia was relatively unscathed, thanks to a miraculous bubble of relative calm on the north edge of the storm's eye. My heart goes out to the many who fared much worse.

[Ben S.]

In response to Dennis Ng's comment about the loss of HMS Bounty: If caught by a storm at sea, it is generally safer to try to run ahead of the weather in open water where one has room to maneuver than to be caught between the shore and the wind. That Bounty was unable to survive despite undergoing a very recent rebuild and possessing modern engines should be seen as a testament to the strength of the storm and the risks sailors have faced since time immemorial, and not as a strike against her skipper's judgement.

Having visited the ship while she was in the yards in Boothbay in 2006 and when she visited my town in August, the news of her loss was a shock mitigated only by the fact that very nearly all hands were saved.

[Roland L]

I'm in Hong Kong. No need to elaborate I'm afraid, I just live in Hong Kong for the time being, where tropical typhoon from the Philippines is a thing we have to live with every summer. Thanks Heavens I live in concrete blocks erected on excellent draining, where I can sleep well, regardless of the typhoon or whatever weather can bring us.