Long Island's citizens are getting restless without power—because it's been like, WHAT, 48 whole hours. Who says Americans are spoiled? Well, everyone. But one lady on Long Island has had enough of her neighbors: My favorite was the lady who asked “Who is going to reimburse me for the $500 worth of food I bought right before the storm that is rotting in my fridge?”

Ok, who is going to be the first for calling you a moron for buying $500 worth of perishable food right before a hurricane? ME! Let me call you a moron. MORON! You go out and buy food that won’t last without electricity [...]

I know, I know, we're all upset that Hurricane Irene failed to shear the city in half and bring the death and destruction so widely predicted. You could see it on the faces of the young people out to brunch at whatever neighborhood restaurants were open yesterday—they were denied their Blackout moment. Most of us didn't even lose power! Is it even a storm if you sleep through it? They've even got the subways mostly running again, so you probably have to go to work. And, sure, there's some bad flooding and stuff in the suburbs, but, really, when all you've got to complain about is how badly the [...]

Although we're currently only at a 30% chance of sustained winds in excess of 58 miles per hour in Brooklyn, and the weather forecast for the 11211 currently only says "gusts up to 85 mph" for Sunday, it's still not a terrible idea to be prepared. Some thoughts for you!

• A device that creates light. As you likely know, the light in your home comes from "electricity." In Brooklyn, much of your electric comes into your townhouse by way of above-ground electrical lines. (You can call your contractor and ask about this if you like; he won't return your call.) Those lines are often disturbed in high winds, [...]

"I predict a 20% chance that New York City will experience a storm surge in excess of 8 feet that will over-top the flood walls in Manhattan and flood the subway system." —EVERYONE PANIC. Or you know, go buy a flashlight and stop worrying.

Won't you extend your lighters as we send out this classic power ballad to reality star, Broadway diva, hair metal frontman and "Gilmore Girls" player Sebastian Bach? For him, it's bad times, for a change. Real bad times: "Original Skid Row & KISS fans, I have bad news for you. Gone are irreplaceable items, such as my KISS Gargoyles from the 1979 tour. KISS pinball machine. Skid Row master tapes, video & audio, concerts, master tapes from Oh Say Can You Scream etc. Boxes & boxes of one of a kind Skid Row memorabilia, from the first tour to our last, all stuff I collected on the [...]

In Miami we braced for a hurricane every year or two, latching down the Bahama shutters, stocking up on canned goods, and filling the bathtubs with water. But as storm after storm fizzled out or swept off to ravage the Gulf Coast or the Carolinas, we started to feel cocky and impervious. The big one didn’t strike until I was away at school, when Andrew rolled in.

My mom's house, miles and miles from the ocean, wasn't supposed to be particularly at risk, but with a storm of that magnitude, wherever you live, you board up the windows and hunker down and pour a drink, get high [...]

"According the model, a hurricane with wind speeds of about 100 miles per hour — making it a 'weak' Category 2 storm — might cause on the order of $35 billion in damage if it were to pass directly over Manhattan…. Although far from the most likely scenario, this may represent a reasonable-worst-case estimate of what could happen if Hurricane Irene took exactly the wrong turn at exactly the wrong time…. Keep in mind that New York’s annual gross domestic product is estimated to be about $1.4 trillion — about one-tenth of the nation’s gross domestic product — so if much of the city were to become dysfunctional for [...]

Enjoy "evacuating." (To… where?) This handy NYC PDF tells you if you're perhaps in the flooding zone of death on Sunday night. (Unsurprising most likely to be victims: Williamsburg, East Village, JFK.) FUN STORY: New York City and Long Island are basically decades overdue for a devastating hurricane. And, as usual, probably nothing will happen. But perhaps this is finally the year that Fire Island bites it!

"I told my girlfriend I had the notion to write my own NYC-based version of 'Good Night, Irene,' and her roommate sent me the link to your post on The Awl, 'Twenty Three Versions of What May Be the Last Song You'll Ever Hear.' That spurred me on to write version #24. I'm a singer-songwriter living in Brooklyn, NY, and like most folks, I was sitting in my apartment yesterday as the storm rolled in. After I re-wrote the lyrics & recorded a simple solo-acoustic version, I got the idea to send it out to a bunch of my fellow NYC musicians, figuring they were also sitting in their apartments, [...]

You probably already knew that New York State is now a totally different state, called Of Emergency. Enjoy your emergency powers! They give you the right to steal, cheat on your spouse, block traffic, be mean to babies and make fun of people on the street. IT'S AN EMERGENCY, I HATE YOUR BLOUSE.