Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

If you’re an Upper West Sider, consider yourself lucky.

While Sandy is still raging, it appears as though the UWS has been spared from significant damage/problems.

A few final notes for the evening:

• The photo above was taken by @westend911 — I believe those are the stairs at Riverside Boulevard & 68th.
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  Right now, the most pressing issue affecting the UWS appears to be that large swaths of Riverside Park South, and perhaps parts of Riverside Park north of 72nd Street, are underwater. You can see a bit of Pier I in the background of the photo and it’s almost completely submerged — it usually sits about 15 feet above the Hudson. It will be interesting to see just what Riverside Park looks like at daybreak on Tuesday. While waters may recede overnight, there could still be some serious flooding, to say nothing of downed trees.
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• While Central Park likely won’t have any flooding, I presume there will be significant tree damage there with many paths and walkways closed as crews try to clear debris.
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• My lights have flickered multiple times throughout the evening and I’ve got numerous reports from readers who experienced the same. That said, as of about 12:15 am, I haven’t heard of any widespread power outages in the neighborhood. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ve still go power in the morning — if for no other reason that a lack of working elevators will make it very difficult to get in and out of my 19th floor apartment, a problem that would affect many people in the neighborhood if power goes out.
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  This is in stark contrast to many other parts of Manhattan. I’ve heard that much of the island south of 34th Street is without power, to say nothing of the millions throughout the Tri-State area that have lost electricity. NYU Hospital has lost both primary AND backup power and is in the process of evacuating patients. It will be a very long time before all power is restored.
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• I’ll have another “What’s Open On The UWS?” post on Tuesday — and will be starting it in the morning rather than today’s mid-afternoon effort. This can only be done with your help, so I’m counting on reader submissions to make it work.
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• October 29th has not been a good day for weather in the northeast. Obviously we’re dealing with Sandy today, but it was exactly a year ago today (10/29/11) that New York City was hit by “Snowtober.”
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  It was nice to look at, but it caused lots of problems throughout region, including knocking out 1,000 trees in Central Park.

Again, unless something major happens overnight, it appears the Upper West Side will be relatively unscathed.

That said, multiple people have been killed by this storm and damage in other parts of NYC and throughout the northeast is extensive.

Here’s hoping that if you’re reading this, you and your family are safe and sound.

Filed under: Central Park, Manhattan, Nature, New York City, News, NYC, Riverside Park, Upper West Side, Upper West Side Blog, UWS No Comments »
Tags: Sandy