OntheWilderSide

Kimberly’s musings on the heavy wind and rain storm:

It is Sunday morning, March 14, 2010. Last night, there was a fierce storm along the northeast coast. Here in Suffolk County, Long Island, we saw a lot of wind and rain. There was one surge of wind near MacArthur airport which rose to the level of hurricane strength.

A woman in Bay Shore died when a tree fell on her. And, I think in other places, there were similar, storm-related deaths.

Some other consequences of the storm:

-A lot of power outages.

-At a local big-box store, sections are closed off because of leaks in the ceiling, and all the refrigerated foods had to be discarded due to the power outage. There was a half a case full of eggs, where someone had discarded the eggs, and threw the cartons back in at all angles to save them (probably for credit from the vendor or the insurance company). There were also orange juice containers with the contents emptied, stuck back in rows on the shelf in the cold-case.

-At a bank in Bay Shore, the ATM was closed off with yellow caution tape, and you could see from the road that it was blinking broken.

-Around the block from us, in North Babylon, an evergreen tree that was taller than a house, fell on someone’s bright red car in the driveway. We saw it “the morning after”, but it didn’t look like a person was hurt, just the tree and the car.

-In the usually serene courtyard in front of my apartment, the grass is strewn with small clumps of branches that came off the trees in the high winds.

Some businesses that will probably suffer a bit from the storm: Insurance companies, LIPA and other utility and electric companies, any food places with coolers, electronic services such as ATM’s. Some businesses that will be busy this week: Tree trimming services (maybe some extra profits), and utility and electric companies (trying to fix power and do damage control).

Now, it is the next day. It felt wonderful this morning, for a short time, to be outside in air that was not raining. (Though, it did start to drizzle again.) Also, for that brief moment of no-rain in the morning, it felt good to hear the birds singing excitedly. Sometimes in suburbia we don’t realize the privilege of the background of chirping creatures.

Filed under: Environment, local, long island, nature, News, Photos Tagged: | long island, storm, storm photos, suburban, suburbs, trees, Weather