It's THAT Bad

In the aftermath of hurricane Sandy, family and friends in our home state of New Jersey are safe. But like so many other NJ residents they remain without electrical power. Thankfully, a wood burning fireplace and generator are helping ease their discomfort. We are keeping in contact by cell phone.

Roadways leading to NJ have pickup trucks carrying generators and gas cans in the back.

Over  2.5 million customers lost power statewide at the height of the storm; currently over 1.5 million homes remain without power. Utility workers from states around the country are traveling to NJ to help repair downed power lines. We saw this support firsthand yesterday. We are on a road trip that took us on the NJ Turnpike, where we spotted utility trucks with Indiana, Maine and Mississippi license plates.There were also numerous tree-clearing companies on the way to helping out.

We also saw long gas lines at turnpike service areas.Then, experienced the situation ourselves in Parsippany, NJ, at the only station with gas available within a 10-mile radius. Along with other motorists, we waited over 3 hours and were thankful to get a $50 fill-up. Most stations are closed since the pumps will not work without electrical power.

Joining these motorists, were lines of homeowners waiting to fill-up containers to fuel their home generators. My brother told me earlier today that he has waited in similar lines for the past couple of days.

These scenes will be repeated for days; New Jersey's main power companies are estimating that some customers may be without power from 10 days to 2 weeks.