As a survivor of dozens of hurricanes (and a few major ones), here's my advice.

* Relax. You will not die in the storm. But you will be inconvenienced.

* You might lose some tree limbs, and your patio furniture may fly down the street, but the top of your house will probably not come off.

* You will need more ice than you can possibly store. Eat what you can out of your freezer now, fill the rest up with bags of ice.

* Make friends with someone who has a gas range.

* Make friends with people who regularly camp.

* Make sure you have the ability to make coffee. Even if it's shitty instant coffee, it will be the best coffee you've ever tasted. Plus, you can trade coffee for goods and services.

* Locate your extension cords.

* Don't buy a generator if you don't already have one.

* Gas up all your cars.

* How do you plan to charge your phone?

* Buy a non-cordless phone. Cordless phones will not work without electricity. Corded phones will. C'mon. They're five bucks.

* Prepare to eat a lot of beans.

* Don't worry about how you'll wash clothes. You won't wash clothes.

Just moved to Florida at the beginning of this month. Right now Sandy is skirting our coast. We expect wind and rain but nothing too bad. Weirdly enough it seems that this will strike NYC and New Jersey head on. Guess I picked a good time to head south. The hope is that it will lose much of its strength before it makes landfall. Good luck to everyone affected.

* OH! And everybody grabs bread. You don't need all that bread. Get tortillas.

*Assess your food situation right now. This minute. Plan to eat everything that will spoil soon. Buy canned stews and soups. Do not buy things that need to be cooked.

* Co-ordinate supplies with friends. You have chips? They have beer.

* It will be scary when the wind is blowing. This scary. You'll be okay. Don't do dumb things. Stay out of the wind.

Radio, batteries.

Don't forget to make sure you have enough pet supplies too (food/litter/toys and whatnot to distract dogs that can't go out) if applicable.

Just got back from the grocery store. I tend not to lose power since I'm on a major road, but I'm stocked with candles and flashlights just in case. I picked up plenty of foodstuffs and whatnot so I'll be able to hang out for a few days if need be. Putting gas in my car tonight.

My dance performance was cancelled for Sunday, which is irritating since I had already put in the request for leave and had my nails done and whatnot, but oh well. I can go do early voting instead.

Note to self: bring in patio shit. (There's not much out there, but my little windchimes and stuff could take a header.)

I'm also going to a party tomorrow night which should be interesting. :)

You need take in only one pair of each kind of animal, however you may not ask their cohabitation preferences.

The bigger the hype, the bigger the dud...

I heard on Canada public radio that the storm was downgraded to cat 1. What I'm most concerned about is snow. I packed fall and summer stuff for this trip (which began in LA) but didn't think I'd need my hat or boots.

I'm in NJ, but I'm hoping it won't be so bad. My neighborhood has underground powerlines, so I think we're harder to knock offline. I'm most worried about the sump pump, as if that goes out, we have to drain and clean out the basement. Nothing valuable is above waist-level down there, but still, you have to dry everything off to prevent mold. Trees dying would suck, too, but none of them are particularly close to the house, so it's not like we're going to have a hole in the kitchen.

I'm also a little anxious about telephony, since our landline is voip based, and we don't have a UPS (I know, I know, it's probably something we should have done), based on the rationale that we could use our cell phones to call out, although reception is spotty (911 should work fine, though). We have cell-phone chargers in the car in case of an extended blackout, and we do have gas.

Interesting datapoint about the generators: I work in a big-box hardware store. Everybody was asking for generators, and we had none due to them selling so fast. So trying to get a generator this late seems counterproductive to just planning out a strategy to live off the grid for a bit.

I spent the last week in Orlando not looking at the news (too tired from the convention walking) and was quite surprised when someone mentioned a hurricane yesterday. And then I was surprised by the uproar for a cat 1 (e.g., the powers that be moved a required meeting from Tues to Fri) but the slow moving part makes sense. I feel sorry for y'all northerners -- at least us southerners are used to the annual hurricane drill.

Part of the concern over the storm is that it's mixing with a Noreaster, so it'll be a mix of two major storms.

This was the week I'm supposed to go back to the office. Another day at home wouldn't be so bad :D

Please keep an eye on it. It isn't the hurricane landfall so much as the weird perfect storm stuff that will bring it inland - I don't expect to loose my roof, but I do expect to loose power, maybe for an extended period. We were considering a trial dog adoption, but have put it off a week. Cheezy battery powered tea lights all over the place =way to go. Also throw a few bags of ice in the freezer and don't open it = two/three days ok freezer stuff.

Oh, and coldchef of course speaks true - fill that car up and get cash.

* Make sure you have the ability to make coffee. Even if it's shitty instant coffee, it will be the best coffee you've ever tasted. Plus, you can trade coffee for goods and services.

I tell ya, in 2008 or whenever it was that we lost power in NH for 10 days in subfreezing December, this was the truest thing you could ever say. People were champs about bundling up indoors, using fireplaces, boiling water to wash in, helping each other out. None of that bothered anybody. But COFFEE was a serious fucking issue. There was one McDonalds at the outskirts of our town that still had power and they had a line of about 40 cars constantly snaking around the building and out onto the road of people just trying to buy a cup of coffee.

WE have a coffeemaker but I keep a French press in the house for just this sort of occasion. With a gas or propane stove or even a propane grill to hear your water, you are set. You can face anything if you'd had a hot cup of morning coffee.

You coffee drinkers, to continue the topic, should make sure you grind up some if you purchase whole beans. If power is out, you'll be SOL. Well, unless you have an old (or new) coffee bean hand grinder thingie. We can't have y'all jonesing for coffee as well as enduring a hurricane.

Now I get to sit back and worry about my brother and sis-in-law.

A little hot coffee goes a looooong way! So true. But for me, it's not having a radio or TV to keep me company in the cold.

My little corner of heaven here in NH has 7 houses, all with generators, all with people that go door to door to help each other. I am incredibly blessed.

But I have to jump on getting supplies. Batteries for flashlights and such go very fast around here. Also, we live on the water so I should make a grab-bag for any potential Bat-Escape. Heh, if there is a flood, we'll all probably end up at Mr. Newicks Bar for the night.

Good luck every one. Hope this turns out to be just another dud.

On all my extended trips to Canada something big has happened: 9-11,the pope dying....I was wondering what it would be this time.

mccarty.tim, keep an eye on your water provider also, unless you have well water. During Floyd, the water company's purification systems were under water, and we were on a boil water alert for 8 days.

bought my case of water. plus i have a gallon. have one of those kinetic radio flashlight dealies from the red cross. car charger for my phone. 1/2 tank of gas. lots of pouches of indian food :) and assorted other nonperishables i already had on hand. i'm not expecting more than a day or two without power.

the camping aisle was empty. no butane for the camp stove. but my neighbor has a grill and just stocked up on fuel so we're good on that front.

i have never lived alone during an event like this so it's kind of interesting and scary. i don't want to be evacuated but they ended up doing that to a large part of the city last year. i lived across the river on higher ground and wasn't affected by all the flooding. (harrisburg pa) but now i live dowtown, 2 blocks from the river. i'm on a higher elevation than a lot of the city - this area wasn't flooded last year when much of the rest was.

so we'll see. good luck to everyone!

Right now I am with my mom in Boston, but E is going back to NYC now and I am supposed to fly to Pittsburgh tonight for work.
I told him a bunch of the stuff from this thread and he is getting some bunny food and ground coffee when he gets home.

I am worried that I will be stranded in PIT (I am supposed to come home to NYC Wed morning and that seems to be right when the storm reaches west). That would suck. I didn't pack extra clothes.

Subway stops at 7PM in NYC. Busses at 9PM. Expecting an 11 foot storm surge in Battery Park. All "A" zones in city being evacuated. Elevators in those zones are being shut down. Along with power, heat and water. Yet Wall Street is staying open. All Hail the Almighty Dollar. Mayor Bloomberg can't speak Spanish to save his life.

Spent a while watching NY1 news here in Orlando. The hurricane is already a memory here.

Wishing all those affected much luck and safety. Be strong, bunnies.

Landfall expected Monday evening at high tide.