WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

As a former Girl Scouts, the motto, “be prepared,” is engraved into my brain. With both parents as scout leaders, we were prepared. We took out the candles, changed the batteries on the flashlights and set the hot pot stove (aka butane stove), therefore, in case a black out occurred, we would still have light and a way of cooking food.

Fortunately, the worst didn’t happen to us. The worst we experienced during Hurricane Sandy was the loss of internet connection.  It took Time Warner Cable two weeks after the storm to return the service to my house. The commute to do homework at school made my parents uneasy, especially after the hurricane. But nonetheless, compared to others, I’m thankful that I still have a home and a family.

My first thought when I heard Hurricane Sandy was coming was essentially: “Phew, thank god I managed to make it back to New York in time, because I was NOT spending another night in the Detroit airport.”

To clarify, I’d only recently gotten back from an emergency trip to China to see me ailing grandmother, so news of Sandy came really fast and leaving me with little idea of what to expect. My family took very limited precautions, moving a few bits of furniture that wasn’t tied down or heavy enough from the terrace, locking down all the windows, etc. My biggest concern wasn’t even for me or the members of my family with me at the time, it was for my father who was told by the hotel he was working for to come in for work the day before Sandy hit. They would provide him and other members of the staff rooms there, but it would essentially strand him in Upper Manhattan until the storm passed. Profit waits for no man, even during a Hurricane apparently.

As for myself, my apartment complex is several stories high, made out of solid brick and mortar, while resting on a hill in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Willamsburg, resting in land and away from the river. You couldn’t really ask for a more storm, flood, and tree proof facility, so it was all about hunkering down and waiting for Sandy to pass. Besides the howling wind and oncoming rain my family and I ran into almost no inconvenience,  both power, phone lines, water, gas, and the internet were still running for the most part. And in the event that they weren’t we had one of these nifty heavy duty flashlights on hand to help out.

There was one scary moment I do have to admit though, sometime towards the end of the night the box-crate locker on our terrace where we kept most of our heavy tools came open, and I in turn got stuck with the job of braving the storm and shutting closed. The winds had died down by then, so it wasn’t too bad, but I had no inclination to linger and bolted back inside with extra hop in my step when the job was done. Afterwards, it was just tracking the storm, and then going to bed with the howling winds for a lullaby. Not the most exciting time in life, but there was some anxiety for some of my relatives scattered across the city, in Long Island, and New Jersey  Everyone came out alright by the end though, for that I’m extremely grateful, and more then willing to take the boredom of waiting the storm out versus the consequences that could have happened otherwise.

     Compared with other people who lost their lives or their homes, I cannot say that I was the victim of Hurricane Sandy.
Bayside,Queens,where I live wasn’t bad compared with many other areas but did not have power or Internet access for a for few days. We had so many candles that we prepared for the hurricane,and we could light the house –but it was difficult to read a book or do many things. After Sandy hit us, I was totally isolated from news coverage,and the media. and I was unable to proceed with school, work, and appointments, as planned. I found that I liked the concept of life without Internet and technologies, until Wednesday morning when I started to anxious and afraid because I felt I was losing touch with reality and the world outside seemed so apocalyptic. I also realized how much our lives are engaged with technology and that made me think of something Albert Einstein said:
“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will be full of idiots.”

Photo by Dachan Chris Hwang

My family and I are very fortunate not to have suffered any loss during the massive hurricane that hit New York like a nuclear war missile. Our days were spent quite and waiting for when it was safe to go out into the world. Like those that feel the same way I do, it was pretty much a waiting game that was miserable at times. The only loss I can honestly say my family and i had was that of the kids not going to school. My daughter was home schooled for the days that the storm shut  down the city. I let her relax for the first two days, but after that it was crunch time. We did go out, but it wasn’t without precaution and making sure we had enough fuel.

I was luckier then a lot of other people when Hurricane Sandy finally hit. My neighborhood of Williamsburg in Brooklyn was a respectable distance inland and rested on top of a hill, giving it the elevated ground needed to avoid any real danger of flooding. By and large all the storm really did to me was ensure I was locked up at home for two days, with all the amenities like water, heat, electricity, and internet (though very spotty at times) still readily available. But as unaffected as I was by Sandy itself, the scars it left behind are all too real for me. 

Despite the wind strength, my neighborhood was fortunate in avoiding the hazards of fallen trees. But even then it’s hard not to notice the contrast in the landscape Sandy created whenever I walk down the block and see branches stripped clean of their bark or a sign turned on completely on its head.

Walking down a bit further and past the local supermarket and you can see an even more telling example as work crews work daily to repair a missing banister that was torn right off.

Still, all these things are minor inconveniences at worse, it’s only walking down even further that you can see where the real impact is being felt.

Unlike the image above my local BP gas station was still completely empty of patrons because it’s still completely empty of actual gas, even several weeks after Sandy’s passing. I can only be thankful that, despite the long delays and only partial restoration at the time, this city has an extensive subway system that I can get by on, otherwise I’d have be like some of the poor suckers I’ve seen who have to carry their own fuel canisters like the ones above to fill up their cars and hope its barely enough to get them wherever they need to go.

Having several internships with government offices keep me in tune of just how much bigger these problems are in other parts of the city though, especially in the areas of lower Manhattan and Staten Island. I don’t even want to get into the stories I still hear outside of the city, where my aunt’s family on Long Island are still without power and heat in the middle of winter!

And so I’ve been doing what I can to help victims that have had it much harder then myself, which I am extremely thankful for. Just this week after Thanksgiving, I was inviting community board leaders to attend and contribute to a food drive, coordinating and setting up the venue in the American Museum of Natural History, and moving an entire truckload of cartons of dehydrated milk and water to be shipped off to the NYC Food Bank. Even now though, while it helps to know I’ve done something to help alleviate the difficulties of others in this trying time, its still disheartening to know it probably isn’t enough, and likely won’t be for some time yet. Life may go on, but the scars still linger.

Lives have altered in ways that is still hard for me to fathom and comprehend. While I can sympathize with victims of this travesty, I can’t empathize, not being even remotely affected. Well, that’s not entirely true but to mention my hitches annihilates the severity of those truly impacted. Sandy’s imprint is indelible.

Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Hurricane Sandy has come and passed but we are still trying to rebuild. Stories of Sandy aren’t as prominent as they were a few weeks ago and will soon take the back seat to the next big story. Stories, even those of devastation last but only so long in the media spotlight. It echoes much like Hurricane Katrina, the same tune anew. People are still suffering in New Orleans; much still needs to be done but the topic has faded into the background. It is hoary to blame journalists and news outlets; it is only doing a disservice to all parties. After all, these people are at the hand of us the general public, there to provide us with what we want. If we are not outraged with the lack of coverage on topics like Hurricane Sandy then nothing will be done, it is supply and demand.  It can be a psychological disposition of society to not want to “deal” with calamity for too long although it seems counterintuitive.

Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

New York will continue to rebuild as the weeks and months pass. Hopefully this is a storm that New Yorkers will not soon forget.

MTA bus service was one of the major victims of the super storm Sandy. MTA had to stop bus services for three days in every borough in the New York City due to the storm. However, after Sandy’s terrible detriment, MTA began running buses on 31^st October, Wednesday with following Sunday’s bus schedule.

One of the MTA bus supervisors in Jackson Heights terminal, Queens gave the feedback on the post Sandy situation. He said that the biggest challenge they faced after the storm was cleaning up streets. There were so many trees came down and blocked streets in Queens that made delay to begin the bus services. Another challenge MTA faced was fixing schedules for employees. Some of their employees live inNew JerseyandPennsylvania, who could not come to work afterSandydue to the transportation problem. Therefore, MTA had to arrange other drivers in a short period of time to fill out slots.

MTA showed sympathy to the post-sandy situation without taking any bus fares from 31^st Oct. to 2^nd Nov. However, they did not offer any reimbursement or substitute plan for the unlimited monthly cards.

Moreover, while MTA subway tunnels were flooded and damaged because of the storm, buses brought life again to people lives. People felt relief from their three days stuck lives at home, and started to go out for works, groceries and meet others. The bus services helped New Yorkers to back into the rhythm of their norm lives.

Sandy is already a distant weather memory for my little corner of Bed Stuy, but the clean up has been a mammoth task for the thousands of people that were affected, and it has certainly changed the nature of my day-to-day routine.

I work for Cuny and our department is normally hard at work processing specific scholarships, and raising funds for the school. Since Sandy however, we have also been involved with helping students with their emergency post storm needs.

Have you ever noticed for example, that every metro card has a ten-digit code on it? Nor did I until I wrote up 200 of them so that we could log in and trace every free monthly card that we give out to the students who come daily through our doors, grateful for just a small bit of help amongst the chaos.
Its one of a number of straight forward but essential administrative tasks that I do which makes me feel like I am just tiny part of the Sandy recovery.

I feel privileged to play a role in the nations leading urban public university and the people I meet everyday are a constant source of inspiration for me. Despite everything, so many students are determined to get to their classes and finish up the semester the best they can.

Sometimes I am not sure we all realize just how incredibly important Cuny is an educational institution here in New York. It definitely makes me proud to know that ten campuses became emergency shelters in the aftermath of the hurricane.

New York has never been one to dwell on the past. We move forward.

Photo Credit: NY POST

Sandy brought many to low points that they weren’t even aware they could reach. Those people are clawing themselves from the pit, fighting for a better tomorrow.

I don’t know what it is to go without power for ten or more days, but my brother does. My brother and his family lived without power for close to two weeks and he told me that the worse part was the feeling of impotence Sandy brought with her. I just can’t fathom what it is to go from having everything one second to having no power, or no home.

Power is back to almost everyone in New York City. They now have some place warm to sleep. Things are looking up, for some.

Some had more problems than just losing lights, they lost homes. Those people are living out of shelters, relatives homes, or places the NYC government has fashioned for them. Their lives are going to take a while to go back to how they were. All of those that are still displaced are still asking for help and asking not to be forgotten because they need the help, they need us.

I was fortunate enough to not be harmed by Sandy’s wrath and that made me more eager to help. My neighborhood church hosted a donation table to send out necessities for those in parts of Staten Island and Coney Island that needed it the most.

I made sure to contribute with everything I possibly could.

Sandy brought with it a lot of destruction, but it also united communities in astounding ways. People in the city reached out to their neighbors in Staten Island. They organized caravans to take supplies to those who needed it the most.

The physical destruction Sandy caused might take weeks, months, or even years to fix. New Yorkers’ spirits though, that is being rebuilt by the second.

Source: Sherri Liberman
Area: Ditmas Park

The after math of Hurricane Sandy struck a cord with me even though I was not affected as much as others. It struck a cord because after leaving my house– after being trapped and being unable to communicate with the outside world– I got beaned in the head with all of the destruction. It was like coming out of a shock and finally waking up to reality. Watching the houses cracked in half on the news as well as the many homeless people in shelters and the people without electricity or heat weeks after the storm, really made me see that Sandy was catastrophic for New York City. My coworkers were affected by it and as I listened to their stories I began to understand the damage the hurricane caused.

Roxmin Lopez, a mother of two, parked her car near the FDR drive and found her car a few blocks away.  “My husband tried to look for the car and found it floating blocks away from where he left it. The insurance company says they will give us the book price so now we’re just waiting.” Lopez says that her car was flooded and completely irreparable. She was not the only one who lost her car, another coworker Barbara Suggs also lost her car and as a Coney Island resident, still has no light or heat.

Yet, residents were not the only ones affected. Leslie Dungee the director of the Lower East Side girls club can no longer bake cookies due to flooding. When asked why she could not bake at home she said that she needs a licensed kitchen in order to sell the goods in the Essex Street Market.  There are many stories like these just in my neighborhood and is sobering how mother nature could one day seem so beautiful and miraculous and the next it could come crashing down on your head and swallow you up.