We all came back last night. Long lines to the access road. Slow going.
Power is back on at our family properties I'm not sure if that applies to all but streetlights, traffic lights and most houses we passed seemed to have power which was a pleasant surprise. The range on our stove said 3:59 AM at 7:00 PM so we presumed that the power went back on around 3 PM yesterday since the clock resets to Midnight but that's just a guess. Items in our freezers were soft so we don't think that it was on much longer. I would suggest to anyone coming in to throw out everything in your refrigerator and freezer that is perishable because it was probably just sitting thawed for days.
We lost gas pressure and needed to relight gas hot water heaters with safety pilots.
My parent home has a basement which has about 2' of water still in there but my house (N. Sumner) and my brother's house (N. Kenyon) were both ok. My Brother is close to the bay and a neighbor that stayed said that water covered his porch (four steps above his lawn) but didn't get into his house by about 3".
Most businesses are closed and many still boarded up.
Some of the businesses that appear to be damaged would include Tomatoes, Maynards, Two Cents Plain, Wawa, CVS, and others in those areas. All these locations tend to have street flooding in bigger storms. All of these older properties sit low in low lying areas, most houses here have at least a few steps of height over these locations. We heard that Casel's needs a lot of work but they are having difficulty getting workers back onto the island. That condition may improve today.
Last night, despite the curfew, the new restaurant Bocca (old Sailfish location) and Pierre's on Washington were open. We stayed away wondering how they kept food safe for four days while the power was out since they couldn't get deliveries between now and then.
There is still some standing water on the beach blocks and tons of sand. All in all the city is pretty intact.
I thought those that couldn't get in yet would appreciate having a sense of what is going on .