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Friday, August 22, 2008

OUR VILLAGE HURRICANE UPDATE

1:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.
Our Village started stage one last Monday. This basically meant preparation and voluntary evacuation. Tuesday the hurricane watch changed to a warning and the grounds crew boarded up common building windows and patrolled the area for potential projectile items to secure. Channel 2 first posted the watch and then this warning and said to monitor the news and be prepared to evacuate. We’ve had a little rain but it’s not raining now. Winds are at best breezy. I just got off the phone with the Gate Keepers and was told as far as they know its still stage one with voluntary evacuation. They had not received any information about the swing bridge closing and offered to call me when they do. I accepted and will post that when called. These poor guys are up there without a working TV or radio in that gate keepers building. It appears there are many who are staying here to ride this hurricane out. More later.

At 3:20 a.m.
I was called by one of our gate keepers that they are closing the swing bridge. He mentioned that he was preceeding to let everyone know. It is windy, but not raining. More later.

At 6:30 a.m.
It is blowing pretty hard. My park model is shaking. As soon as it gets light out I'll try to look around. The weather channel said it is going to get worse. Oh well.

At 8:00 a.m.
I cruised the area and took the photos below. The weather channel said the worse is still yet to come. It's blowing real hard now. Amazingly the power is still on. It will be a catagory 2 hurricane within the hour and the eye bands will hit us with the highest winds. It does appear they have the Rec. Hall open for those who wish to go there. It also appears our G.M. is there. Will continue later if the power stays on and I don't get blown away.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...: Owners from the north also

Thank you Joey! My husband and I appreciate your efforts very much.
Although its an unfortunate time we have a comforting feeling that at least we know something and someone cares enough to keep use informed.
Please be safe don't take any chances. The pictures are a nice touch.. Let hope its not any worse then that!
God speed to all!; Jul 23, 2008, 8:28:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Thank you Joey for the updates and pictures.

You take care of yourself.; Jul 23, 2008, 9:06:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Hey, thanks for keeping this updated on such a timely basis! Great for us out-of-towners to have a first hand account of someone on site, instead of just relying on the Weather Channel! Bill; Jul 23, 2008, 10:02:00 AM
Anonymous said...: Thank you for your info. There is none on the LIV site. You are the only one that keeps us informed. Keep up the good work.
Canadian Residents, with a home in LIV; Jul 23, 2008, 10:32:00 AM
Anonymous said...: You should have been here! It was something to see rain blown so hard it turned into an opaque cloud, visbility 50-100 feet, see photos!; Jul 29, 2008, 8:32:00 AM
silverstreak44 said...: Only trouble is, the gatekeepers didn't let us know they were closing the swing bridge and so, we were stranded. Was all packed to leave when they told us to but, alas, no notification !!!!!; Jul 29, 2008, 7:49:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Doesn't the hurricane plan provide a procedure for all this? Was the plan followed? If so, how is it possible for residents to be stranded on the island like this?; Jul 31, 2008, 10:57:00 PM
Anonymous said...: Supposedly there is an Evacuation/Emergency Plan. Unfortunately the residents haven't had access to it. I guess they ASSUME we(residents) know it. I feel that information and details about evacuations should be made available to all residents. There also needs to be a notification system so ALL residents will know when the bridge will be closed for travel.; Aug 1, 2008, 10:30:00 PM
Anonymous said...: After our close call with Emily several years ago, the residents let the GM and his team know what they felt about the Hurricane preparedness on Long Island. There was none. There was not 1 Aramark employee on LI during the storm. The GM, the same one we have now, kept changing when the bridge would be closed to traffic via the marquee, which had everyone confused. There was a trailer fire during the storm and not 1 Aramark person to help. No security, no maintenance and of course no management.

There was a heated meeting following that storm with residents wanting to know why LIV was not prepared - what's the plan? Of course, there was no reasonable answer. Leroy Mulch kept saying "we have a plan" as he held up the "book". It was decided that we needed generators and some sort of fire equipment in case of another fire during a storm or whenever the bridge was closed to vehicular traffic.

Per normal, there was no fire equipment purchased, no generators and of course, no plan implemented.

There are some "givens", living on an island.

-Not everyone will evacuate.
-The bridge will be closed to traffic so who ever stays behind is stranded.
-The electric will be off.
-There will be no fresh water.

A competent manager would have prepared for the above well in advance, not during or after the storm.

Not only did the GM not prepare for the storm, he expected gratitude and a pat on the back when he finally did a few things after the storm passed.

Why doesn't he just do his job. I can't believe that we continue to pay him and his sidekicks for the joke of a job they do on everything.; Aug 5, 2008, 4:29:00 PM