From Sandy to Thor: One long day in New York

So I think it's safe to say that while it's fun being breezy when the weather gods are not hammering at your windows, and it's easy to be cynical when you're far from the panic... it's a completely different story when you walk out into a gale force wind! Which of course, I felt I had to do, while sending a quick update to the folks at home.

That's me after walking down the street, getting bark and leaves in my eyes and then being blown away, down the street - the wind gods telling me the way to go back home now, quickly! Before worse happens. So yes, the Mayor's advice to stay indoors during Superstorm Sandy, was perhaps the best advice to follow.

Now as we see images of flooding and expect major rainfall and hear of flooding in the subway tunnels, there's clearly a lot of damage that will have to be dealt with. The heroes really are the emergency workers, city and government officials who are on duty through this.

There is information doing the rounds that power at a hospital in the city went out, you have to feel for the nurses.

The Mayor's office tweeting that 911 (emergency services) are getting 10,000 calls per half-hour, that shows you the extent of the panic - their advice was to call another number to report trees uprooted etc. It's pretty freaky, even sitting home alone, knowing you're indoors - other people are talking about their buildings shaking, power going out, water seeping in. The lights flickering had my heartbeat go up, because in situations like this you never can quite tell. I sent out - okay not a prayer, but a tweet! (Doesn't that count?) - to Thor and his buddies.

And yet, kudos to the city and its administration for making pretty much everyone take this so seriously as to *not* be foolhardy and stormchase, and for the most part, getting everyone off the streets, preventing what could be much more catastrophic damage, than hopefully we'll see.

It's too soon to say, but by tomorrow morning things should ease up, at least here in New York. Thoughts with the rest of the region, and also back home, where there's news of a cyclone warning in Tamil Nadu...

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