Getting back to normal--Post Hurricane

As I write this, I'm sitting on my comfy bed, in my warm apartment with the overhead lights on and my laptop plugged in--isn't electricity wonderful? Here's a little recap.

Sunday night. We topped off our gas tank. Turned out to be very smart!

Hurricane Sandy hit on a Monday night. We watched the coverage on the news, made some treats, and enjoyed working from home on a stormy day. Tuesday night around 8:00ish, the storm came ashore. We felt the house moving in the wind (it feels creepy) and cuddled up to watch "Dial M for Murder." We could see the blue and white flashes of transformers exploding in the distance. About five minutes before the end of the movie, we saw a flash close by and our power went out.

Kit around 5:00pm on Monday. It was almost too windy to walk.

Tuesday was spent assessing the damage and waiting for news from the outside world. Since the power outages were so extensive, a lot of the cell towers were down and our phones didn't really work. (So THIS is why they tell you to get a battery powered radio...) Our computer and phone batteries made it most of the day. We played Scrabble. I took a nap. We taped our freezer shut so we'd remember not to open it. Our neighbors  about 1/2 a mile away never lost power. They invited us over and we took a casserole in our power-less fridge to bake. They let us shower and charge up. And play with their kids.

We got home and the power came on for a few hours, then strangely went out again.

Wednesday, we really needed to get some work done. We got up early, drove to a McDonald's inside a Walmart and camped out for a few hours. Then we went to the Weehawken library for a few hours. Too many people on the Internet--it was extremely slow. Then we went to Kit's manager's house (who never lost power) and worked through the evening. We went back to our neighbors with power that night. Watched the 'Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpkin!'

Thursday. It was impossible to get into the city, but Kit's office in Englewood Cliffs had secured a generator and was open for employees and employees' families. We jumped at the chance to go to work! Almost every person at Kit's work was out of power. We got a full day of work in and got to charge our cell phones and be in a heated area to boot. That evening we drove over to NYC (took the bridge) and spent time with Brent and Hannah, Kit's colleague and his wife. That night we arrived home to electricity! We were incredibly fortunate.

 Kit putting his arm up to the high water mark on River Road. We are at least 150 yards from the river's normal banks. You can see all of the debris that the flooding brings behind Kit. You can also see that any cars in the parking lot behind would have been flooded.

 Hard to see, but the high water mark goes halfway over the Weehawken track. 

 Our neighborhood suffered no flooding, only damage from wind. This downed line was still there four days after the storm. Shows how busy city and power crews were.

Hard to see, but a huge piece of scaffolding and a canopy off of one of the apartment buildings flew off and landed on two cars. This is why you don't walk around during hurricanes!

We saw several large trees that pulled up the sidewalk. Luckily this tree didn't really damage the house--not even the glass globe ceiling in the sitting room.

Downed trees everywhere. 

Friday, I was able to make it into the city because NJ transit busses were running again. It was good to be at work! However, most of my team was still out of the office. I left early to meet Kit on the other side of the bridge. We didn't have much food and our grocery stores were either still out of power or waiting for shipments of food, so we decided to go out to dinner. The problem was finding a restaurant that had power! We drove west for about 20 minutes and found a mall we heard had power. It was amazing seeing how much of the state was still without power after five days. 

The mall we went to had a staging ground for the local utilities trucks. There were probably 300 basket-trucks and other vehicles there. It was obvious that they were working very hard. 

Saturday we went down to Hoboken to hand out food and hygiene kits to the people there. They were still pumping out water when we arrived. Later that night we made pumpkin pie and BBQ chicken with our friends Aaron and Olga. Sunday we had church in a different location (still no power at our normal building) and then we went to hand out food in Hoboken again.

This past week has been pretty normal except my commute to NYC has been horrendous. Getting to the city is not too bad, but the lines in Port Authority are very long and terribly managed. The PATH train (that normally takes a lot of NJ commuters) will be out of service for several more weeks. 

Our grocery store has meat and dairy again and the gas crisis is pretty much over. Commuting is not as smooth as it could be but it's not terrible.

This week we've gone to lower Jersey City to help take out soaked drywall and other ruined belongings. The people there got around 5 feet of water in their homes. When the storm surge hit, the water started come up through the drains.

The stories go on and on. Our area didn't get hit very hard--just lost power for a few days. Some areas however, (Jersey City, Hoboken, Staten Island, Long Island, the Jersey Shore) all got hit incredibly hard and the cleanup is still ongoing. Tens of thousands are still without power, almost two weeks later. Some of the stories from coworkers about relatives or friends in Long Island, Hoboken or Staten Island are dreadful. 

It was a fantastically powerful storm that essentially shut down lower NYC for a week. What's crazy is that some people's houses were destroyed and some people didn't notice a difference in their lives at all.  It's very sad to see the devastation in flooded areas. Flooding is incredibly destructive--something I didn't completely get until I saw it first hand.

Glad it's over and things are getting back to normal.