Hurricane Sandy is about to hit the Big Apple, which means there’s a good chance you’re not going to work today — which is incredibly unfortunate for the blogosphere considering its existence relies almost entirely on people fucking off at work.
I’m not going to work today, either — I’m gonna be holed up in an apartment in Queens that just happens to be in a part of the borough that Mayor Mike Bloomberg has determined to be an “evacuation zone.”
But I didn’t evacuate — and this isn’t even my apartment.
Today, I will be updating Voice readers about the storm from the
evacuation zone of Long Island City. But my choice to not evacuate is
not a macho thing. Rather — despite having been warned of the dangers
of my current location by its current status as an “evacuation zone” as
the supposed storm to end all storms is bearing down on New York — Long
Island City is still a much safer neighborhood than Crown Heights,
where I currently reside.
So far, the MTA has suspended services
for the entire subway system, buses, and rail lines. President Barack
Obama has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the storm,
and Governor Andrew Cuomo will be spending the day deploying the
National Guard to various locations throughout the state.
In the “evacuation zone” that is LIC, there’s not a whole lot of evacuating taking place.
Throughout
the day yesterday, I saw several people wheeling suitcases to cars,
apparently on their way out of town. But I saw even more people buying
supplies (read: booze) for the storm at the grocery store, where I
waited in line for 45 minutes to buy beer and ingredients for a chili
recipe. I waited in line for another 45 minutes after I ruined the
aforementioned chili.
The storm is supposed to start getting
pretty nasty about 11 a.m. We’re on all the relevant municipal and state
email lists, so the Voice will have all the up-to-date information
you’ll need to weather the storm. We also have roof access, so we hope
to get some pretty cool photos, too.
Check back throughout the day for updates.
