Mission NJ: Good News!

After Ohio we were in West Virginia for all of 15 minutes; a little spike on the map before entering Pennsylvania. It was here I received a very positive call from my work colleague and fellow Jersey City resident Matt. He had picked up a rental car (since his own washed away) and was outside my apartment. Although there was no way of being 100% sure, he reckoned the flood water hadn't reached my street really; certainly there was no visible storm damage to the apartment. The basement apartment may have been affected which may mean the gas connection would be shut off, but it supposedly looked minimal damage if anything.

We have avoided all the areas with the worst reported snow coverage, with only a period of snowy hills and trees in Pennsylvania thus far. The roads have been clear and spirits pretty high, considering the 4 of us have been cooped up together for 2 days. There was ones wrong turn on the way to lunch but eating cheered everyone up within 5 minutes.

We will now wait until we reach New Jersey in a couple of hours before finding a place to stay for the night. Tomorrow AM we will head to the apartment through the reported clear streets, unload the truck, and see about getting me working from home. There's another day for the local authorities to restore power and such to the area; they've been reported as doing a fantastic recovery job thus far so fingers crossed!

Mission NJ: Overnight in Ohio

Last night we made it to Springfield, Ohio (home of the Simpsons?) where we stopped for the night at a Quality Inn. The whole place reminded me of the setting for the film "Cedar Rapids" but we had a surprisingly good dinner at their near-empty cafe, watched some comedy on TV then got some sleep.

We heard back from the office management and the situation is not good. 7 World Trade Center has 13ft of water in the basement, and have only been able to pump out 1ft of it out due to more seeping in through the bedrock. The office is not expected to be back open until Monday, November 5th at the earliest, so those who can work from home will be doing so this week. Of course our bosses have reminded us that our own personal safety and situation is the primary concern ahead of work availability.

This morning we ate nice breakfast sausages at "Bob Evans" and drank a bunch of coffee, ready for the road again. We are expecting snow en route so will take it easy; we may stay overnight again so we can get into Jersey City in the first hours of tomorrow's daylight.

Mission NJ: into Indiana

It has now been about 8hrs which includes a lunch stop for around an hour at Crackerbarrell; "home of good country cooking!" I had a catfish sandwich.

The drive as expected was uneventful up until about an hour ago. We hit Indianapolis at about the time traffic became slow and weather became miserable. There's nothing unusual about either at this stage; they aren't slowing us down majorly and indeed I think we left the worst of the traffic back in Indianapolis. However the weather was so gloriously dry in Wisconsin and Illinois that this has injected some realism into the trip: the weather is going to be like this the rest of the way. There is likely going to be places with a lot of snow or water on the ground too, but hopefully the rain and wind doesn't get worse than a blustery downpour.

Reports from colleagues back in NJ and NY are that most flood water has receded and that folk are assessing and repairing some of the damage. Early reports however indicate that the PATH system; which links me in NJ to work at WTC; will be down for 7-10 days, so looks like I'm not getting to the office anytime soon, at least by conventional methods. Of course, the office building management haven't stated how the area is faring, and with many tunnels and subway flooded the office wouldn't receive many inhabitants anyway, so operating from home may well be the best policy for the next week.

We are now nearly in Ohio where we plan to drive about another 100 miles before finding a late dinner and a place to sleep. Onwards!

Mission NJ: Update from the Road

I haven't used this blog for a while, but as there a few asking for updates on our travel to storm-hit Jersey City, I figured I could use this, at least whilst we have mobile internet signal...

About 2 hours ago we set off in a very full truck towards NJ. It is not overly comfortable but no worse than a budget airline, and at least with this method of transport we can stop and get out!

Doug has picked a route which takes us a few hours South before we cut across; this should mean we avoid hitting the storm head-on, unlike with route through Canada. Our first day of driving should be long and uneventful; but tomorrow we will hit West Virginia for about an hour where the storm is currently depositing 2-3ft of snow. We are however expecting the highway to be open by tomorrow, and likewise expecting the worst of the weather and flooding to have receded ahead of arrival in Jersey City.

What awaits us there is a little bit of an unknown; a colleague lives a little further towards the Hudson river and has had his car swept away by 5ft of water (he didn't heed warnings to move it to higher ground) and the bottom floor of his building was flooded. He is fine but is assessing damage. The good news for us is that our apartment is further from the river and about 8ft off street level with a basement below. This will be bad for whoever is below us but should have spared our apartment from anything catastrophic. Further good news is that another colleague nearer to us is mostly ok barring loss of power. We may be without power when we arrive, but as many millions are out this will be both expected and resolved as soon as possible.

Early reports are saying that transport tunnels are very badly flooded so it is likely many won't be able to get to our office, even if it is open. World Trade Center is a construction zone and is at the end of Manhattan which has seen a lot of flooding. No one at our building has been there to give us an update so we are playing work by ear. Those with power and Internet are able to work from home.

As always we are travelling with caution and of course today won't tell us much from this distance. More updates will follow as I know more! It is also Doug's 70th birthday so we are planning in stopping for something nice to eat this evening before finding a motel. Should raise our spirits!