As the sun set on Veterans Day, 2012, tens of thousands of homes on New York’s Long Island prepared to spend another night in darkness. The lack of light was not part of any particular memorial or observance; instead, it was the noisome and needless culmination of decades of mismanagement and malfeasance by a power company still struggling to pay for a now-moldering nuclear plant that never provided a single usable kilowatt to the region’s utility customers.

According to a very cool map up at the LIPA storm center page, we already have power outages in Hempstead. Levittown, Long Beach and on the north fork.

The loud sound of the first deluge woke me at 4 AM and I can’t get back to sleep, so I thought I would start a liveblog.

When my power goes out–any we’re pretty certain it will, I’m gonna lose internet. We are expecting to lose cell service if the winds are bad –no wind here so far– because out repeaters are on the watertower on the top of an exposed hill and–wait for it–at the beach.

The single biggest reason that Long Island can be mistaken for heaven on Earth is the beaches. From the boardwalks of Coney Island and Rockaway, past the world class resort quality of Jones Beach, passing through my personal fave’s Tobay and Gilgo beaches, all the way to the Hamptons, Long Island beaches are central to our way of life. We have a thriving fishing industry and our oysters, from Blue Point on the south shore and Oyster Bay on the north shore, are legendary.

Eric Holder scolds the church ladies.