Meanwhile, in Western New York, 130,000 still without power

[hedgehog]

following last Friday's storm. The snow is all gone, but so are a lot of trees. It'll be Sunday before people in Amherst, Tonawanda and Buffalo are back on the grid. Several of the local town supervisors are planning on sending maps to FEMA since apparently FEMA can't find the towns begging for aid. My mother asks me every day what is being reported on the national news and I have to tell her that the story is being ignored. Who knew that New orleans and Buffalo had so much in common? Buffalo didn't take a fraction of the hit that New Orleans did, but they are both yesterday's story as far as the national press is concerned.

On edit: last I heard, 14 people had died; 1 hit by falling debris, several older people asphyxiated by carbon monoxide from generators and one woman who died when her oxygen concentrator lost power.

[Infomaniac]

1. I have family there.

It has gone beyond ridiculous. Another FEMA fuck-up. My sister bought the last two generators at a Home Depot in Rochester for family members in the Buffalo-area. Generators are at a premium and affected businesses are losing or have already thousands of dollars.

[hedgehog]

4. I went out Friday morning and bought a battery operated sump pump for my

dad. I can't recommend them enough. For about $130 plus the price of a car battery, you can keep your cellar dry when the power goes out. Not everyone wants to spring the big bucks for a generator, but an auxiliary sump pump is a good thing to have installed. It'll kick in and protect you even if all that wrong is a hung up float! most people can figure out how to stay warm and fed in the event of a power outage, but baling the cellar 24/7 is the pits!

[bigwillq]

2. How awful.

I send out my best vibes and thoughts to the people affected.

[Old and In the Way]

3. Where is the corporate media reporting on this? Unbelieveable.

I know we aren't allowed to see the bad news in Iraq. I guess we can no longer hear any bad news about domestic disasters, either. Too bad Buffulo, I guess we are too close to an election and the Republican corporate media can't have more of this administration's incompetence exposed.

[babylonsister]

5. Now there's a great question; MIA as usual. nt

[hedgehog]

6. Actually, I'd have to say that Buffalo is doing pretty good.

We saw literally hundreds of power company trucks and tree trimming trucks headed into the area over the week-end. The crews seem to have a handle on how to attack the problem. It's just going to take a while because they literally have to go house to house to check the condition of the lines. The roads were open Saturday even if they were somewhat of an obstacle course. Traffic signals were out, but most people adapted by treating intersections as a four way stop. Only the County Executive in his chauffeur driven SUV managed to get into an accident. He wasn't hurt. He spent last year gutting one of the best library systems in the nation and egging on city-county infighting rather than raise taxes on the richest people in the county.

[Book Lover]

7. How is Syracuse doing?

Any Syracusian DU'ers?

[hedgehog]

9. It was gorgeous in Syracuse!

You have to understand, lake effect usually is extremely localized. The Buffalo area is pretty flat. I can stand on my parents' front lawn in Amherst in sun shine and see the lake effect clouds hanging over my in-laws' house 20 miles away in the South Towns. in this case, my folks' property was a mess and my in-laws got nothing. Five miles outside the zone of devastation, there was no sign whatsoever of any storm.

Up here near Syracuse, we get lake effect off of Lake Ontario. It can be snowing so hard here in Fulton that you literally can't see out the window, but 10 miles away in Oswego the sun is shining. It made it really awkward the time I had to call in to work to say that I couldn't get out of the driveway! The road was actually clear. It's just that it's not safe to drive when you can't the hood of the car!

[wholetruth00]

8. Well, that ought to take care of the Republican governorship.

[hedgehog]

10. That's a done deal.

I can't think of anything that Spitzer can do at this point to lose to the Republican Fasso. Oddly enough, they were debating in Buffalo last Thursday night and must have gotten stuck in the storm! Quite an education for them if they didn't understand Upstate before!

[hedgehog]

11. By the way, two names are floating around Buffalo for this storm

Friday the 13th storm and October Surprise!