The two things I've always loved about living on Long Island are that it generally lacks extreme weather and isn't prone to natural disasters. Summer and winter temperatures are milder than they are elsewhere in the States, since we're an island on the coast. We aren't prone to earthquakes, wildfires, dust storms, tornadoes, severe droughts, tsunamis, or avalanches. We sometimes get blizzards that dump some snow on us in the winter, but in bad storms, we'll get two and a half feet of snow instead of eight to ten. We get tropical storms - hurricanes that have been downgraded by the time they hit - on occasion, but usually all we get from them is some rain, maybe very isolated and small power outages.
Due to the fact that we almost never have to deal with natural disasters, we were totally unprepared for Hurricane Sandy. We were even less prepared for the Nor'easter (northeastern snow storm) that hit us the week after it, compounding the damage.
Since this blog was founded on the idea of broadening horizons, here are 7 facts about what happened during and after Hurricane Sandy and what's occurring on Long Island right now.
- Mandatory evacuation orders. The areas closest to the coast, a.k.a. storm surge zones, were issued mandatory evacuation orders before the storm hit. Thousands of people had to find shelter elsewhere, either in the homes of family and friends that lived further inland or in shelters set up for the government for that purpose.
- Property devastation. Thankfully, most people in mandatory evacuation zones did evacuate - allowing them to survive the storm. Sandy BLASTED the coast, causing flooding like residents had never seen and in some cases, literally sweeping their homes out to sea. People who didn't evacuate before the storm hit had to be evacuated by boat in some instances.
- Widespread power outages. In recent history, the worst power outages Long Island had seen before this storm was in August of last year, when Hurricane Irene knocked out power to over 800,000 Long Islanders. After that storm, power took over a week to restore. Hurricane Sandy, however, beat that record - over 1,000,000 homes and businesses lost power. Transformers blew up and caused fires, setting places ablaze during the worst parts of the storm. Trees took powerlines down all over the place. Poles snapped in half. I stayed at my mother's home for twelve days, because my home did not have power restored until then.
- Public shutdown. All public transportation was shut down before the storm, and it's taken a long time to restore. The commuter rail system, which conveys many Long Island residents to work in Manhattan each day, wasn't operational for days. Service was limited or modified until November 12th, when most service was restored. However, some service is STILL out. Numerous schools had no power for days on end, having to cancel over a week of classes. When my sister's college classes resumed, she was going to all different buildings for them, since part of her campus was being used to shelter people who were still without power or had homes that were destroyed or uninhabitable.
- No heat or hot water. Power outages meant that people didn't have electricity to heat their homes or water. Temperatures dropped below freezing after the Nor'easter came through. People were miserable. My father, who was working on the front lines to restore power because of his company's contract, got harassed by angry customers by day (even though he had no control over his orders or who gets power when) and then went home to sleep in his old cold bed at night - until he had to stay with his crew. Then he slept in his car, without a sleeping bag.
- Gas shortages and rationing. Rationing is still in place. Ships delivering gasoline couldn't come into port during or directly after the storm, causing massive gas shortages on the Island. Between people trying to get enough gas in their cars to get to work (many companies had employees report to work if the company had power, regardless of whether or not the employee was displaced or rendered homeless, dealing with insurance companies, had no heat/hot water, etc.) and others trying to find gas to run their generators so they could do basic things like charging their cell phones, prices shot up and the supply went dry. Conditions have improved greatly, but in the aftermath of the storm, gas lines were literally hours long.
- Displacement. Between the initial evacuations, flood damage, fire damage, downed trees and power lines, problems with public transportation, and the gas shortage, so many people were temporarily or permanently displaced by the storm. My sister's friend lost half of her home; her family is trying to figure out what to do. She's staying with her boyfriend forty minutes away, her parents went to a relative's home a few hours away, and her younger sibling is staying with friends. She and her sibling couldn't go to the relative's home because they both go to school around here, and they couldn't possibly commute from so far away.
Life is resuming for most Long Islanders, but the gravity of the situation still hasn't sunk in yet. None of us can believe that this happened here, somewhere we've always believed we were safe. We're still in a fog, wondering if it was all a dream. Of course, it wasn't, but... New Yorkers are the type that plow on, for better or worse.
