How do I catch node.js/express server errors like EADDRINUSE?

Listen for the error event on the server isntance

hons_server.on 'error', (err) ->
    console.log 'there was an error:', err.message

The accepted solution did not work for me on nodejs 0.8.22 and express 3.1.0.

This did the trick:

process.on('uncaughtException', function(err) {
    if(err.errno === 'EADDRINUSE')
         console.log(...);
    else
         console.log(err);
    process.exit(1);
});     

Also see Node.js Express app handle startup errors