Getting Set for Sandy and Remembering Irene – Do You Take the Warnings Seriously? [POLL]

When I hear warnings of the possibility of a major storm…one the likes of being compared to the “perfect storm” of 1991…I hope for the best but get ready for the worst.

Last time out, with Irene, I went out to get a battery powered sump pump and tried to hook it up…alas to no avail.

Thankfully I didn’t need it!

However with the upcoming storm, being dubbed 'Frankenstorm'…I wonder if it’s being taken seriously, especially given the amount of damage and days without power many of us had to endure.

Do you feel the folks over at the National Weather Service overstate the severity of approaching storms…especially since that they’ve already given it a nickname?

According to this:

An unusual nasty mix of a hurricane and a winter storm that forecasters are now calling "Frankenstorm" is likely to blast most of the East Coast next week, focusing the worst of its weather mayhem around New York City and New Jersey.

Government forecasters on Thursday upped the odds of a major weather mess, now saying there's a 90 percent chance that the East will get steady gale-force winds, heavy rain, flooding and maybe snow starting Sunday and stretching past Halloween on Wednesday.

Meteorologists say it is likely to cause $1 billion in damages.

The storm is a combination of Hurricane Sandy, now in the Caribbean, an early winter storm in the West, and a blast of arctic air from the North. They're predicted to collide and park over the country's most populous coastal corridor and reach as far inland as Ohio.

The hurricane part of the storm is likely to come ashore somewhere in New Jersey on Tuesday morning, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecaster Jim Cisco. But this is a storm that will affect a far wider area, so people all along the East have to be wary, Cisco said.

One of the more messy aspects of the expected storm is that it just won't leave. The worst of it should peak early Tuesday, but it will stretch into midweek, forecasters say. Weather may start clearing in the mid-Atlantic the day after Halloween and Nov. 2 in the Northeast, Cisco said.

"It's almost a weeklong, five-day, six-day event," Cisco said Thursday from NOAA's northern storm forecast center in College Park, Md. "It's going to be a widespread serious storm."

With every hour, meteorologists are getting more confident that this storm is going to be bad and they're able to focus their forecasts more.
Both private and federal meteorologists are calling this a storm that will likely go down in the history books.

Some have compared it to the so-called Perfect Storm that struck off the coast of New England in 1991, but Cisco said that one didn't hit as populated an area and is not comparable to what the East Coast may be facing. Nor is it like last year's Halloween storm, which was merely an early snowstorm in the Northeast.

"The Perfect Storm only did $200 million of damage and I'm thinking a billion," said Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the private service Weather Underground. "Yeah, it will be worse."

Even if, hopefully, by the time the weekend comes around and the storm track has its path heading out to sea…..get the batteries ready just in case.

We’ll all be here….as will Alan Casper to regale us with tales of storms past!