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October 30, 2012

Hurricane Sandy Drove 5th Avenue to Batten down the Apple Store

By Steve Anderson, Contributing TMCnet Writer

As the monster storm known as Hurricane Sandy made its way to the New England area, preparations in advance of the event were made in a bid to protect lives and property. Not surprisingly, the Apple (News - Alert) Store proved to be no exception, as a variety of preparation methods were observed at the Apple Store location on New York's 5th Avenue prior to the storm.



CNN's Jonathan Wald, producer with the Piers Morgan show, sent some pictures from the store as well as a few tweets to back up just what was being seen, and the Apple Store's protection measures were surprisingly extensive. Not surprisingly, the store itself had been closed -- a common move for many of the stores and businesses in the New York area and beyond ahead of the storm -- but the laptops, iPads and other hardware had been covered in plastic in response to potential storm surge issues.


Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Clearly with the storm surge in mind, the Apple Store had also laid out a protective ring of sandbags near what seemed to be the entrance. But perhaps the largest protective measure had not yet been taken, as the primarily glass exterior of the Apple Store had not been taped or covered, a common response to hurricanes in more hurricane-prone areas like Florida.

Additionally, other Apple Stores in the area are making likewise protections, with a short layer of sandbags spotted in front of the windows of a Philadelphia Apple Store. The precautions weren't limited to Apple, as Google canceled an Android (News - Alert) event scheduled to take place today which would have likely announced not only the LG Nexus 4, the Nexus 10 tablet, and Android 4.2, otherwise known as Key Lime Pie.

It's clear that everyone that is, or even may be, in the path of Hurricane Sandy is taking things seriously, even though few have hurricane experience in that area. It's also interesting to see the preparations involved in making Apple Stores, typically not thought of as hurricane survivors, better protected against hurricanes. After all, when those stores were built, the biggest concerns were likely blizzards, and maybe an outside thought given to tornadoes. These are significantly more common events in the region than hurricanes, which almost never reach that far north. Hopefully, everyone involved will make it through safely and with a minimum of disruption, though given how much is currently shut down, the likelihood of disruption is, sadly, high.




Edited by Rich Steeves
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