WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

Being a typical New Yorker and having suffered many of Mayor Bloomberg’s “natural disaster scares” that have gotten me all riled in anticipation for something very impacting and awful only to be greeted with laughable wind currents and a snow storm that gives me the shivers, I was not expecting any of this to happen. The day before the subways were meant to be shutdown in lieu of Sandy’s rage, I was in Albany partying it up for Halloween not worrying a single bit about what will happen. My sister calls me the following morning telling me to go home early because the Subways were going to be shut down at 7pm and too be careful. Of course, I brush her off and give her a unamused “yeah okay got it” expecting nothing but a little rain fall and some mild to heavy gusts. Boy was I wrong. Big time.

Thankfully, I’m alive and well. Worst damage done to m home was just some minor roof damage but I’ll take it happily. I have no words to describe what happened. It was just a shock. Never in my lifetime I would have expected a hurricane of that caliber to hit Brooklyn the way it did. My heart goes out to the many of those who lost their homes, cars and loved ones during this tragic event. Just being without power for a day completely disables New York. Driving to work those couple of days afterwards felt like I was going through some post apocalypse city and some Resident Evil creature was going to jump out at me and eat my head off. It was pitch black. Never have I seen New York in such a paralyzed state and I was heart breaking.

For now, I am grateful. I feel New York did an outstanding job handling this unfortunate situation the best it could have. When Mother Nature strikes, the best thing to do is just keep on because you can place the blame on anyone. Here, a couple weeks after the matter, we are still trying to recover and go back to things being normal. Although it’s hard, we just have to be strong and keep on. We just don’t value our well beings and our city as much as we should. We take things for granted and assume the best. After the dozens of cries from the Mayor in previous years of similar situations, it’s not baffling why New Yorkers didn’t evacuate when they were told to and why people were still on the streets when they were told not to be. It’s New York. The best city in the world. The same city that people who want to go see the World Trade Center don’t because they can always go see it next weekend or next year and assume nothing bad will ever happen.