WRITING CULTURE 2012: Film, Food & Beyond

Hurricane Sandy Effect
Source: Sherri Liberman

Hurricane Sandy has made me realize how much we depend on technology but it also made me realize how utterly boring life is without it.

Since I was born in the Dominican Republic, I have been through hurricanes and cyclones so it is safe to say that this storm was nothing to me. However, unlike those days back in my country I was not this addicted to technology or Korean dramas.  This is why I had a fully charged iPad and iPod full of my Korean dramas to weather the storm.

Although, my devices put up the good fight they eventually died and this is when I knew I had to escape. There was no water or electricity but now there was no more entertainment. There were only so many Korean actors I could draw before dying of boredom.  So I packed a bag and escaped to the Bronx in a cab. Though, not before seeing my neighbors climbing 15 floors with a bucket of water in the pitch black staircase.  At this point I was grateful that I had somewhere to escape to.

Seeing the people around my neighborhood walk around aimlessly, searching for water and ways to escape brought home how unprepared the city was for this disaster. Getting an email from the school that people had actually died is an even greater cause for concern.

All in all, Hurricane Sandy did not do me any irreparable damage and I have seen much worse. It’s hard for me to take this very seriously after seeing my grandmother walk a few miles in such a hurricane but I hope that next time we are all adequately prepared even if it turns out to be nothing. Better safe than sorry, I always say.

New York Magazine Cover Shot.

Hurricane Sandy was probably one of the scariest things I have lived through. Ever.

The way your body shakes or shutters every time Sandy’s winds hit the window out of pure fear and consciousness that a million things could go terribly wrong. The lights flickering so quickly, and regularly, that it’s almost like you’re blinking, but you know it’s not you it’s everything that is happening outside.

The sense of fear comes from not being to do anything; being completely at the mercy of nature is inexplicably humbling.

I was lucky. My area did not get hit badly, I didn’t lose power, my grandmother was safe, and we were alive. I counted my blessings, 100 times over. 

Others weren’t so lucky and for them my heart broke. I was consoled by the fact that New York City showed that for all the privacy we seek, we are still a city that knows solidarity and protects their neighbor.

I followed most of the storm, like many others, through TV coverage and Twitter. To say that these reporters did an amazing job covering the storm is an epic understatement. The images below all link to stories that I think covered Sandy the best they could. I also followed Anthony D. Rosa of Reuters’s twitter throughout the entire storm and afterwards. Even though he wasn’t like one of the news reporters on the ground, his insight was amazing. I especially liked that he volunteered on Saturday in SI and tweeted about what was really going on there. Unfortunately, news channels were not covering how horrific SI’s destruction is and how displaced these people feel. Rosa captured that emotion in his tweets and rallied more people to go volunteer and help.

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I was glad when Baruch College was closed, but by the third day I was losing my mind. I needed to go out somewhere. I had the urge like an addict has for his drug.  I didn’t care where I went as long as I was out of my house and wondering freely in the streets of NYC.  I do appreciate the rest I got from these days, but I also learned to appreciate the wrath of mother nature.  I had never experienced a storm like Hurricane Sandy. Thankfully we didn’t lose power or anything for that matter. We are

The devastation and the heart ache that this storm caused is unfathomable. While my family and I were safe in our haven, thousand of people and children were going through what I can never imagine in my life. The story that rips my heart is of the mother in Staten Island who lost her 2 sons while trying to find them a safe place. What I don’t understand is why anyone would attempt to leave their home and compete with a hurricane. As a mother myself, I would’ve thought out a plan carefully to make sure that my daughter and I are safe and can live to see the aftermath of such a powerful storm that tore up our city. I can’t imagine any parent I know risking their lives and their children’s life the way this mother did. I am sorry if I sound harsh, but the truth is the truth.

Photo:Juliya Madorskaya

As I have finally managed to escape Sea Gate, Brooklyn, (Zone A) I have come to realize that there has been little to no presence of city authorities there after landfall of super-storm Sandy. All of the police and medical presence was private Hatzolah and soon Sea Gate authorities followed by NYPD, Thursday morning. It is now Saturday and I have been dragged out by loving arms to thaw out in Bath Beach.

After the first high tide of the day came around the corner and over the breaker walls at 8 am on Monday October 29, 2012, the debate of whether to leave began to swirl in parallel with the storm. After making a logical argument about the situation and convincing my family and some neighbors to leave, I wound up staying in the area, just further from the coastline, as far from the coast as you could be, in fact.

There was a sudden fear that struck me about turning off the electricity at my home. I flew off of the chair I was peacefully planted in playing Rummikub for the few hours before Sandy swallowed our lives. As fast as my feet could carry me, wheezing, I ripped through my front door and slid down the basement stairs, catching myself on the banister. The sound of my screaming at my brother to leave was cut in half by the closing front door. It was over; there was no more time to escape. The solid thumping of my boots against the street became a silencing sloshing river of sewage, loose bricks, branches and the beginnings of torn awnings and porches within minutes.

The water level rose faster than I could run. Isabelle, the girl whose house I had come from, was being pulled by me and pushed the fear. Autopilot had set in. I dragged her with me, like runners shoulder to shoulder, momentum, crushing her fingers in the attempt to hold on to her. The water filled our boots and we struggled to turn off of the street into her home. I ran down to her basement to turn off her power main and the basement doors flew off the hinges from the pressure. Tripping over the elliptical, sitting dead center, I felt nothing due to the adrenaline. I climbed back to the first floor, threw off all my clothes and ran upstairs wearing a make shift outfit made out of a sweater.

People were making a last attempt to get out and the cars began to moan in their slow drowning. The older cars would moan until they were muffled by the water and you could see the head lights sinking like shiny coins until they were no more. The newer cars would pop the trunk and windows, going all the quicker. The cars began to float and the poles began to bow to Mother in obedience.  Dogs and children appeared to float above the water but they were perched on the shoulders of adults, ceilings had collapsed and water was gurgling toward and through the first floors. The arms of the Atlantic were rearranging the Lego-like coast line but we wouldn’t know how badly until morning. There was Rum-mikub and the grand finally for the evening was Valerian root wrapped in crumbs of hope and each others arms.

This was the morning after…

Photos:Juliya Madorskaya