Blow Me Down!

It was a windy day yesterday.

I didn't go out.

I only knew about the wind because the downstairs neighbors' satellite dish cable was tapping incessantly on my window.

Thousands lost power, trucks flipped, people were blown down the streets, and at least two people died during the storm that affected areas from New Jersey to New Hampshire.

I didn't go out. I learned about all that from the Associated Press.

I am on vacation and I am sleeping a lot.

Yesterday, I surfed the web and answered emails and watched "Little Bear" and "Franklin" and listened to Tony Visconti's "Inventory" and played with plastic food and stuffed animals and had coffee with our neighbor and ate three meals and watched Burton Albion lose to Manchester United.

There was so much to do, so I didn't get out.

But I knew it was windy.

I love weather.

But I didn't go out in it yesterday.

High Winds in Northeast Blamed in 2 Deaths
By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jan 18, 8:40 PM ET

High winds knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers in the Northeast on Wednesday and wreaked havoc for commuters, blowing trees across railroad tracks, overturning tractor-trailers, and making for wild ferry rides.

More than 440,000 homes and businesses lost power, and several airports reported delays of two hours or more. The wind was blamed for at least two deaths when trees fell on cars.

Authorities said a 52-year-old man was killed just north of New York City as he was pulling out of his driveway to go to work, and an 80-year-old Massachusetts woman was killed on Cape Cod as she drove on a road.

Power failures were reported in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, the Philadelphia area, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Maine.

Some customers had their electricity back within hours, while others were told that wind damage to utility poles and wires was so extensive that repairs might take days.

In Maryland, a storm-caused power-outage forced NASA to scrub its launch Wednesday of an unmanned spacecraft on a voyage to Pluto. The power went out at the Maryland lab that is managing operations for the mission.

Gusts exceeded 60 mph around the Boston area early Wednesday afternoon, including an 85 mph gust at an observatory in Milton, south of Boston.

Louise Donase was stuck in traffic on New York's Tappan Zee Bridge, watching as gusts of wind tore the mudflaps from the trucks around her. Then the green tractor-trailer on her right was blown over, right onto her brand new Honda.

"The noise was deafening," she said in an interview at her desk in White Plains, where she works for the Westchester County technology department.

"It came over right onto my car and the SUV in front of me. ... I was afraid the truck would ignite."

Another tractor-trailer flipped on the George Washington Bridge, which connects New Jersey and New York. A fallen tree blocked commuter train traffic between Connecticut to New York's Grand Central Terminal.

And out in the bay, a New York Waterway ferry running from New Jersey to Manhattan met some high seas that reached the passenger deck and prompted a rush for the life preservers.

At Boston's Logan International Airport, incoming flights were delayed more than 2 1/2 hours by the weather at midafternoon, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Earlier in the day, departures were delayed an average of one hour and 39 minutes at Newark International Airport and 56 minutes at New York's La Guardia Airport, where winds were gusting at 59 mph, the Port Authority said.

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