Flew into New York at sunset yesterday. Wasn't delayed at all. There was a fair bit of debris on the beaches as we flew over Long Island into JFK airport, as well as some flooding. I don't know what it looked like before Hurricane Sandy so can't say how bad the damage is. JFK was a ghost town. My flight was one of the first to land from LA. I was told that there was probably only a quarter of the aircraft activity there as usual, so it was a rare sight. Also, Lower Manhattan was still without power & water so most of the skyscrapers had no lights on. I've never seen the Manhattan skyline at night before but I was told that it shouldn't look like it did.
I got a lift to Yonkers. Yonkers is about 45 min north on the east side of the Hudson River.
Woke up to an amazing view of the Hudson and the cliffs of The Palisades on the other side. The Palisades is a national park, and the cliffs carved out by the river are a couple of hundred feet high. Went for a walk along the river. The train line runs adjacent to the river shore. All trains were cancelled because the tracks were flooded. The trains here have electric cables on the ground, not overhead. I walked beside the tracks for a bit until I got to the Yonkers Yacht Club. The pontoons and boathouse had been destroyed by the flood. Weirdly most of the smaller yachts and boats had been trailered to higher ground next to the train line, so there were all these boats lined up next to the track. There were several big barges & ships in the river that were sheltering from the hurricane. Apparently another rare sight. Since there were no trains today, there were no cars or people at the train station so it was quiet, just me, the squirrels and my peanut butter M&M's. Hopefully the public transport is back up and running tomorrow. I am going into the city to pick up my race numbers etc, and to do a bus tour of the city. Most of the lower parts are still closed and they are also waiting for the crane to fall off the top of that 157 skyscraper, so they have closed a few streets around Central Park.
