Superstorm Sandy
I’m smelly, tired, and culture shocked, and I haven’t even left the US yet. It’s been an interesting couple of days in New Jersey, to say the least.
We heard that “the perfect storm” was coming through, and we saw on the news the catastrophic predictions. Never before, they kept saying, had they seen a storm like this. Hurricane Sandy was going to be bad. Real bad. So many features were combining to make it the force of mass destruction that it was to be. Like low pressure, an artic cold front combining with the tropical storm from the South, and more.
We spent the weekend preparing for the angry storm, bringing items into the house, reinforcing the chicken coup, moving the trailers away from trees, and arranging with the neighbors to share their generator. Hurricane Irene left NJ without power for 6 days last year, so we were well aware that this would be just the same if not worse.
On Sunday night, we read that the storm was moving up the coast at 11 mph. It was supposed to make landfall around 6 pm on Monday. The rain and wind began Sunday night, but Monday indeed was when it got bad. It was around 2 pm when we lost power on Monday. I woke up from a nap around 4, went into the house, and sure enough, the darkness had begun. We sat there like cows waiting to go to slaughter, just wondering when it was going to hit.
Around 5 is when the wind started to pick up. The trees started dancing, and fall leaves were swirling around the sky like a snowglobe. Now it was just about waiting.
That night, I sat in the art studio, reading my kindle with a headlamp and listening to the storm outside. The sound of the generator downed out most of the noise, but nothing could disguise the sound of the wind intermittently smashing against the windows and walls. I realized my cat was not in the studio with me. I had let her out earlier to let her relieve her bladder, and she never came back. Shit, I thought. I’ve got to find her, she’s probably terrified.
I threw on my raincoat and went outside. It was crazy. Every step I took, it felt like I was about to be blown over. I covered my head with my arms, to protect against branches flying through the air.
“Devil! DEV!!” I screamed, shining my headlamp under the trailers outside dad’s shop. “Dev! Here kitty kitty!” Nothing. She was nowhere. I walked all around by the garage, her usual stomping grounds.
CRACK!
I heard a branch fall, but I couldn’t see where it fell from.
I gave up looking. I could get killed out here, and she must be safe wherever she was. I walked back to the studio.
There was Devil Kitty, at the door to the studio, whining for me. She must have heard me calling but couldn’t locate where my voice was coming from in the wind. She was grateful to get inside.
I put her in, and walked back to the house to get some food for her. The wind was crazy. I got inside safely, dreading going out again to get back to the studio. The tree outside of our kitchen window was broken in half and lying on the ground. Wow, it really was a bad storm.
I braved the walk back to the studio, and vowed to myself that I wouldn’t go back outside again tonight. It was terribly dangerous to do so, and I had all I needed in the studio. I sat there in the dark, petting Devil, and listening to the storm. The generator had turned off. I heard a tremendously loud CRACK and then CRASH. If a tree falls in a hurricane, yeah, you hear it. I couldn’t imagine what tree it was, but it was close to the house for sure. I shined my light out the window, praying it didn’t crash on the house. It was a huge pine tree, and it had fallen across the driveway. In the dark, it looked like it landed on the neighbor’s house, but the morning light revealed that it just barely missed it.
I went to bed.
In the morning, I woke up early to my dad outside, fixing the generator. I got out of bed, with a pit in my stomach, scared to see what happened.
Wow, we got lucky. Our house was missing a few shingles on the roof, and we lost a couple of trees, but none had fallen on our cars or buildings. And the neighbors were OK too. I walked with my mom over to the Cane Farm, where she had parked her car in case we got blocked in (which we did). We decided to go on a drive around the area to assess the damage, see what roads were open, and try to get to Lambertville, where we used to live, and check on some friends.
We drove around for hours, taking weird backroads and even driving on lawns to get around fallen trees. It was a disaster. Trees were balancing delicately on power lines, and some telephone poles were just snapped right off. What a mess. It became suddenly quite clear that we would be without electricity for at least a week. There’s no way any team of workers could repair the damage any sooner. Lines were down everywhere. Free wires were just hanging in the air. What a nightmare, I kept thinking.
The damage to the Jersey Shore was apparently the worst. We only got bits and pieces of information, as we had no internet or TV for days. We heard that Seaside was underwater, and the amusement park and boardwalk was destroyed. Hoboken was underwater. Brooklyn, underwater. A couple million in NJ without power.
Our friends down the road fared much worse than we did. They came over on Wednesday to fill some jars with water (they have well water, we have city water, which doesn’t require electricity), and filled us in on their situation. They had a tree fall on their house Monday night, ripping open a window and taking off their electric grid box. They also had one of their cars totaled, by a fallen tree. She was saying how ironic that was, because just before the storm hit, she suggested to her husband that they separate the cars, in case a tree fell on them, so that both wouldn’t be crushed. Well, the car they moved was the one that got hit. So it goes.
Our friends Steven and Susan came over to check on us. They offered to take me to their house, where they had hot water from their woodburning furnace. I needed a shower. I hopped in their car.
They became the white stallion in the siege. They had an iPad with 3G, and the network was still working. I was able to get online, send some messages to friends letting them know we were ok, and check on my flight, which was still scheduled to fly out on Thursday. But JFK was closed, and all public transit around the city was closed. Staten Island was under water. How on Earth was my flight really going out on time? With over 8,000 flights out of JFK cancelled Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, my skepticism was strong. But here I am, at JFK, waiting for the AirChina checkin counter to open. We got here early to make sure I didn’t miss my 4:50 flight. We had no idea what to expect with the roads.
The roads were all fine getting here, and we just barely missed a road closing on the way up. As we were driving on 202 N, we saw smoke up ahead with a couple of police cars near it. Just as we drove past, the brass fence next to the smoke went off like fireworks. There was a wire down, burning the ground, and I guess the whole fence got an electric current and started going crazy. As we passed the scene, it was like a bomb went off, and the smoke went crazy. Minutes later, no doubt, the road would be closed and we wouldn’t be able to get North.
So here I am, waiting, watching the TV and seeing how vast the devastation was. I can’t believe it. It makes me sad to see so many familiar places all in ruin.
Well, I have 5 hours until boarding time, then an 18-hour flight. How to pass the time…
