As Hurricane Sandy blew through the Northeast, many New Yorkers from all walks of life were left with few available options for shelter.
Baruch Sociology Professor Kyra Gaunt, Ph.D. was supposed to be in New Orleans for a music conference the week of the storm – but, as the winds picked up, her travel plans were canceled and she found herself stranded in the Lower East Side.
“I made a list, I got my batteries and my
candles, and also what you needed for a
go bag – but it didn’t occur to me to think
of where I would go.”
– Kyra Gaunt, Ph.D.
When her high-rise was evacuated, Gaunt began a four-day journey through three different emergency shelters at opposite ends of Manhattan – and she learned a lot about herself and her environment along the way.
Listen to her recounting her experience below.
Below is a map of the various shelters that Gaunt inhabited over the course of four days. The first, a public high school on the corner of Grand St. and Essex St. in the Lower East Side, housed her through Monday night after her first day displaced from home. Destination B, Wadleigh Elementary School on 114th St, was where she and her fellow evacuees were relocated to on Tuesday. She stayed at Wadleigh until Thursday, when she was moved again to George Washington High School on 191st and Audubon, where she remained until she was able to reach out to friends.
WOW!! Who posted this? You should be really proud of yourself. I like the approach you took, giving a four-minute clip of the professor bearing witness to the situation. Plus the use of a map to show how far she was displaced. And the picture showing, to a degree, that the woman on the right is traumatized. Well done.