WYNANTSKILL, N.Y. - Hurricane Sandy is lashing parts of the East Coast today. At least one New Yorker is using the occasion as a teachable moment.

This unusual contraption is a homemade weather station created by a CNN iReporter. Tek Turbiasz lives in suburban Troy, N.Y. in Wynantskill. He says he built the odd looking weather station to keep his children calm as Sandy approaches and to teach them that weather can be monitored and how to do it.

Sandy has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes on the Eastern Seaboard, and it has paralyzed travel in the region.

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