Yosemite Besieged By Massive Wildfires

At more than 120,000 acres, the Rim Fire continues burning all through the Central Sierra Nevada range, and has burned areas within one of the nation's crown jewel national parks - Yosemite.

While Yosemite Valley is safe for now, the same can't be said of the Hetch Hetchy area.



Hetch Hetchy Reservoir taken 4/2013


The Hetch Hetchy Reservoir is San Francisco's primary water supply and is a

Read More

Gov. Christie Must Fire NJ Transit Officials For Failing To Follow Rail Plan Before Sandy

Governor Chris Christie has given his blessing and backing to NJ Transit officials in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, which devastated NJ Transit's rail fleet. 343 railcars and locomotives were flooded and damaged. A portion of the fleet remains out of service due to flood damage.

The costs are in the hundreds of millions, and yet NJ Transit officials have skated by despite incontrovertible

Read More

The Infrastructure Mess

Infrastructure and public safety once again come to the forefront with the collapse of the I5 Bridge in WA. It's looking like investigators are focusing on a truck that passed through the area shortly before the accident and whether it struck the overhead supports, knocking the span out of alignment. That would take quite a bit of force, unless other issues were at play (including corrosion and a

Read More

The Senate Will Finally Vote on $50.5 Billion Sandy Aid Package

91 days.

That's how many days since Hurricane Sandy slammed ashore along the New Jersey and New York coast and caused billions upon billions of dollars in damage and crippled the region for weeks on end.

Sandy washed ashore at the end of October, which means that there are many who are without heat and power still - in the depths of winter at a time when Congress couldn't get its act together.

Read More

Gov. Christie Takes House GOP and Rep. Boehner to Task For Screwing Sandy Victims

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie gave a press conference today following sending a letter to Congressional leaders along with Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York.

It was a real barn burner and the focus of his righteous ire was the mess created by House Republicans. Members of his own political party, and specifically, Speaker John Boehner, screwed victims of Hurricane Sandy in the name of

Read More

Another Report Shows NJ Transit Ignored Flooding Risks

NJ Transit continues to show that it ignored reports and warnings that its facilities in Hoboken and Kearny were in flood zones and equipment and materials stored there could be subject to flooding.

A report studying climate change and its effect on NJ Transit highlighted that both Kearny and Hoboken were in flood zones.The $45,990 study included a map that shows the Kearny and Hoboken rail

Read More

The Case Against NJ Transit's James Weinstein

Jim Weinstein is the executive director of NJ Transit and his latest round of hearings with members of Congress and the New Jersey legislature raise questions about how the agency was run before, during, and after Hurricane Sandy made landfall.

The main focus has been on how and why the agency failed to move more than 300 railcars out of flood zones in Kearny and Hoboken. That's a more than

Read More

Media, Weather Experts Confirm NJ Transit Failed To Heed Flood Warnings

The Star Ledger conducted its own investigation into how NJ Transit managed to flood a third of its rail fleet (more than 300 rail cars and locomotives) by staging them in their Kearny and Hoboken yards.

Despite protestations by NJ Transit chief Jim Weinstein claiming that he didn't have warnings indicating that both locations would flood, The Ledger and other weather experts said that they

Read More

Yet Another Reason Not To Trust NJ Transit

I've long written that NJ Transit could not be trusted to carry out capital projects such as the now-killed ARC Tunnel project and that it couldn't manage its current operating budget or priorities properly.

Now comes word that NJ Transit recklessly disregarded reports from the weather services that it positioned one third of its rail fleet in areas that were expected to flood.

That's no way to

Read More

NJ Transit and Port Authority Fail Commuters During Crisis Yet Again

The disaster response by NJ Transit and PATH is beyond deplorable. It's atrocious and defies common sense. The agency seems to think that it's done a good job in providing information to its customers, and yet there is a daily crush of thousands of commuters attempting to get home by way of one of the three rail lines servicing New Jersey other than the Atlantic City Line or the bus service that

Read More

Making Hash of the Commute

I'm so glad I'm not commuting into NYC this morning.

NJ Transit is an absolute mess. They claimed that they had service restored on a couple of lines, but here's what that meant.

For Main/Port Jervis, it was 7 trains inbound in the morning, and 3 would get to New York City after what's normally considered rush hour (10-11am). No reverse commute trains. In the PM, you'd have the same situation -

Read More

Photos From the Recovery in Radburn

One tree removed, countless others remain to be addressed





PSE&G already installing new poles to restring power lines. Tree crews had come through earlier today to dispose of the trees that took out these lines.





Lots of work remain before power gets restored on this segment. At least two more poles have to be installed before they can begin restringing the power lines and other

Read More

A Slow Slog To Recovery From Sandy

Relief efforts in Fair Lawn continue. I was out and about and PSE&G is busy in my vicinity. They had tree crews working ahead of them - cutting away trees that had brought down lines on Radburn Rd., and were already in the process of putting up new poles. They had to take a break to get additional poles. Once the poles are up, they'll have to restring the lines followed by running new lines up to

Read More

Hurricane Sandy Affects Bergen County NJ

Mutual support gear from Florida prepositioned at Garden State Plaza in Paramus, New Jersey





Utility pole augur prepared at Garden State Plaza





Saddle River County Park had multiple trees down, including this huge tree that landed in the duck pond. The park is located in Ridgewood NJ





Trees leaning on utility lines are an all too common occurrence. So, even if people in immediate

Read More

Hurricane Isaac Surprises With Flooding and Storm Surge

Hurricane Isaac isn't the strongest hurricane to hit the Gulf Coast or near New Orleans, but it's creating havoc because the storm is moving so slowly. The winds aren't the problem with the storm, it's the flooding rains and accompanying storm surge while the storm is progressing at a crawl.

The storm surge is higher than models had predicted yesterday. As Jeff Masters notes:Isaac is bringing

Read More

Tropical Storm Isaac Spares Florida, But Track Takes It Towards New Orleans

The storm track was great news for Florida, but the worst of all worlds for the Gulf Coast. While much of southern Florida was drenched with soaking rains and strong winds, the damage was minimal compared to what could have been.

The storm is now over the open water of the Gulf of Mexico and that's going to allow the storm to intensify. The tracks are putting it further and further to the west.

Read More

Tropical Storm Isaac On Path Towards Florida and Gulf Coast

AC_FL_RunContent = 0;


if(AC_FL_RunContent == 0){
alert("This page requires AC_RunActiveContent.js.");
}else{
AC_FL_RunContent(
'codebase', 'http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0',
'width', '300',
'height', '250',
'src', 'http://icons.wxug.com/i/t/sticker/tropical_sticker',
'quality', '

Read More

Traffic Jam On Long Island Leaves Many Wary

Last week, there was a major traffic jam on the East End of Long Island out near the Hamptons. Normally, that's wouldn't merit much of a news report, except that this one stretched out for 20 miles and led to a standstill on the two major roads leading out of the area (and back towards the mainland).CBS 2’s Jennifer McLogan was one of the thousands that were trapped in the traffic nightmare as a

Read More

Connecticut Panel Hands Down Recommendations Over Electric Utility Reliability

Once you attach a price tag to any project, all of a sudden supporters suddenly balk at making the necessary changes.

Connecticut residents suffered horrendously at the hands of Connecticut Light and Power during the double whammy of Hurricane Irene/Lee and then the freak October snowstorm. Millions of people were without power for days on end, and the utility was ill-prepared to deal with the

Read More