The funny thing is – or maybe it’s not funny – when a hurricane and the Eastern Seaboard interact, the result is an explosion of wild numbers.

Here’s the picture so far, gathered from various sources of mitigated reliability:

  • Close to one million people without power in Virginia and North Carolina;
  • Nearly 10,000 flights cancelled; 5 airports closed down to arrivals and soon to shut down completely;
  • Biggest (and even first, I believe) weather-caused U.S. city-wide transit system shutdown ever;
  • Evacuation orders affecting over two million people so far throughout the hurricane’s path;
  • 370,000 New Yorkers under a mandatory evacuation notice;
  • All NYC taxis and limos under a zone fare policy to increase the fleet’s carrying capacity: $10 a head within one zone (borough), $5 extra to cross a zone boundary;
  • Possible power shutdown on Sunday to 6,000 or 7,000 customers in Lower Manhattan and around Wall Street to prevent further damage if floods and tides combine nastily;
  • All Broadway shows cancelled; all beaches and city parks closed;
  • Brooklyn’s Sahadi’s closed at 5:00 PM instead of 7:00 PM! They were going to drive all their employees home. All nearby bigger stores closed much earlier because of the MTA shutdown;
  • President Obama has cut his summer vacation short one day to return to Washington DC and watch the Weather Channel; he was quoted saying “It’s going to be a long 72 hours.” He probably dislikes the commercials as much as I do;
  • Don Estorbo de la Bodega Dominicana, probably sensing the pressure drop, got on our nerves and was granted his first evening meal 30 minutes earlier than normal.

Now obviously, the last point was the most traumatic to all involved. But we are New Yorkers. We’ll make it through the week-end.

And as Diane puts it so well in a comment below:

” I’ve no doubt there will be howls of “over-reacting” when a down-graded storms (sic) sweeps through. But louder would be the gurgles of drowned folk if there was no precaution taken.”