It was a year ago on this day that Hurricane Sandy hit this region. To my understanding, it was essentially two storms joining together, mixed with the full moon to boot, to produce a storm unlike anything we had seen in many, many decades, if ever.
I was working at the time that Sandy hit. In some ways, it really was like life before and after Sandy. Life was relatively normal beforehand, and hurricanes seemed something kind of distant. Sure, they hit the New York/New Jersey area from time to time, and there had been some damage along the shore, and even in the interior. Usually, those news reports show high tides, and downed telephone lines, and maybe some flooding in towns and homes. But that's it.
Not this time. Power went out almost everywhere in New Jersey. It took several days, and in some cases even weeks, for it to be restored. At our place, my girlfriend and I were one of the very lucky few to have full power. There were signs of damage everywhere - even a downed tree - and I mean a big tree at that - not fifty feet from our bedroom. Hell, maybe not even ten feet. And it took a chunk of the earth with it, because the roots were dragged out. Yet, it fell in such a way that it did not actually hit the apartment, or even the power lines.
The streets were deserted for several days afterwards. Maybe you were not even supposed to drive, although I had to drive to get to work and back, as well as to check on my parents up north, as well as my son. My son and his mom got their power back in less than a week. Maybe just a few days. My parents? Well, it was around a week or more. They had to stay at a local makeshift shelter.
That was the story all over New Jersey, and this area in general. No power. No running water. Road closures just everywhere. Flooded zones everywhere. Long lines, ridiculously long lines, at gas stations, that reminded me of what I had heard about in the seventies, during the oil embargo days.
Yet, nobody that I know personally was seriously hurt, or anything like that. Inconvenienced, sure. We all were, and it was just a matter of degrees. I got stuck at work the first day or so, but had been prepared. They had generators on, so we had limited power. The internet went down for a while, maybe a few days, but nothing really horrible. I had to take a cold shower, but only one. Again, we had full power at home.
Personally, I was not as inconvenienced as many others, if not most. Had to work quite a few extra hours at work over the course of the week, but that was it, for the most part. The gas lines were sometimes annoying, but that was everyone that got hit with that.
I remember sitting there at work on that night. You could hear the wind outside, and see the rain pounding. We watched online, and I remember seeing a clip of an explosion in Manhattan. Much of the downtown was flooded. Much of the Jersey Shore was flooded, and some people lost everything. Quite a few people, in fact.
The hurricane, as everyone knows, did a tremendous amount of damage. it changed the landscape, quite literally. Some communities have not recovered, even a year later. Many were unable, or unwilling, to rebuild their homes as they had been before. After you see the ocean devour your home, you would probably feel the same way. We built too close to the shore, some people recognized. Lesson learned.
Not everyone learned, of course. But perhaps with the next storm, there might be more serious attempts to draw a bit back from oceanfront properties.
Life eventually began to get normal again for most people in the region before too long. It took weeks. We cancelled Halloween in New Jersey. We were unable to take my son out to celebrate his birthday properly. Again, it took weeks. But by Thanksgiving, things were finally getting back to normal.
Yet, for many people, that never happened. Some who lost their homes, close to the shore. Some in the Jersey Shore, some in Brooklyn, and other parts of Manhattan. I understand that some communities along the shore looked like disaster zones, perhaps even war zones.
There are commercials now, assuring us that we are "Stronger Than the Storm".
Sometimes, though, I wonder if that's actually true.
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