Much of Providence is without power. I found the National Grid web site to keep an eye on it. Our hotel is in Warwick and it looks like they don't have power but I'm not sure. Hopefully by Friday all will be well...

Photos
 

Driving to work this morning wasn't fun. It seemed as though NONE of the street lights in Morristown, NJ were working. Police officers stood at many of them trying to direct traffic, but at some, you had to figure out a way through the mess.

Just north of here, I-287 on the northbound side collapsed:

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...4/image001.png

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...4/image004.jpg

http://i196.photobucket.com/albums/a...4/image003.jpg

My cousin and his wife are in Coventry, RI (southern part of the state), and they still don't have electricity.

Those pictures are amazing. I actually didn't realize how badly Vermont was affected until I watched the CBS Evening News tonight. In addition to Vermont, they talked a lot about NJ, and Windham, NY (all with pictures included in the link)... I was shocked to hear some of the stories.

They also showed this on the news tonight...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyO18one8fU

The bridge was built in 1870. Those of us from New England love our covered bridges... it's sad to see one of them disappear like this, so quickly.

For those of you wondering about Rhode Island, my cousin's friend posted this on Facebook today:

http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...4_752187_n.jpg

After popping into this thread, I checked in my friend in RI. She is without power but all her family is safe so she's still in good spirits. :)

Yeah, I may be scrambling for a different hotel. I'm going to call tonight to see if they have power because our hotel is in Warwick which seems to be in worse shape. My former co-worker whose daughter is at Brown said the campus has power, so that's a good thing.

I always wonder why they say, "for updates check the website" when, in all actuality, if you don't have power, you probably don't have internet access... you might have a phone or laptop but by now, they've got no battery left. LOL Just my thoughts!

tangent - I personally love when I call my internet provider and while on hold get the message - "You can also contact us on the web at www._____". NO I CAN'T.

lol,
I'm on hold with the phone company as we speak because my landline is out. They keep repeating the message that I should contact them on my landline so they can help me faster. No I can't since you failed to install my landline properly.

I'm about 45 minutes from that area ;)

Controlling for other factors, Hurricane Katrina was a stronger category of a storm than Hurricane Irene and the coverage of Irene is so much more immediate and "positive" than that of Katrina. The government and organizations definitely learned a lesson from Katrina. But, there are still thousands of people in flooded areas without power. They estimate the cost to be in the billions. The death toll is about 50 so far. It is interesting that a storm that was about a category 1 has received so much coverage...and positive coverage. No stories of people looting, harming each other, or anything (that doesn't mean that it isn't happening); and there is even media coverage of couples getting married, having babies, and stuff. It must be nice to exude such positivity in the midst of (what many would consider) more than a minor inconvenience to their normal lives. And even if it was only a minor inconvenience to their normal lives...it must be nice for flooding and power outages to only be a minor inconvenience. They certainly can't say that Hurricane Irene wasn't a big deal, the local and national news are still covering it.

Yeaaaaaaaah...demographics matter.