Unbelievable! That's the word that comes to mind. In a very smart move, the people that run the power plants here, did a planned blackout just as the winds brought by hurricane Sandy began to pick up, so yesterday at about 6 PM we went dark.
This made the storm seem even worse, because now in the dark all we heard was the fury of the storm, and things outside banging and crashing. Luckily we were prepared so that we were able to follow what was going on by listening to the battery-powered radio, and we had lanterns that ran on batteries, and so we were not left in the dark.
But to our disbelief, as the storm was really whipping things around and the wind was blowing at really high speeds, as we looked out the window, we saw maniacs driving around! This even as the public officials were warning people on the radio, TV, and even by driving around in trucks--before the storm hit-- warning people to please, please NOT go out and drive, to stay indoors. The exceptions being that those who lived near the shores, were ordered to evacuate -- for their own protection, shelters were opened, this a full day before the storm hit.But no...there were people determined to stay, even though they were in the direct path of Sandy.
So it is not surprising, that we saw, as we drove around, that thanks to the preemptive shutting down of the electricity, that even though there were many, many trees that were thrown about, ripped from the ground, as if a giant hand was just angry and just threw them all over, and other stuff were thrown about---there were not any fires here, no major blazing infernos. However, tragically...those people that stubbornly decided to stay in their shore homes were horribly affected. The boardwalks were destroyed, houses were swept away, whole communities were destroyed.
The tragedy at Breezy Point underscored the tragedy of people not being prepared, thank goodness, that at least most people listened and left when they were ordered to evacuate. Tragically, people who had no inkling how to operate gas-powered generators, tried to use them, and as reported by an eyewitness, all he heard was a popping sound--an explosion--this at the height of the storm -- and next thing you know the wind just whipped the flames all around, and about 110 homes, were burned to the ground and firefighters could only watch helplessly as they burned, because they could not get near due to the winds whipping the ocean water too high--colossal tragedy!
But, as our governor said, we have to rethink our strategies for these kinds of storms, we have to rethink: should homes be built that close to the shore? And if we allow them, we must build smarter so that if another major storm comes-- tragedies like this don't happen again.
We got our electricity back around 4 PM, but we are the lucky ones, other neighborhoods don't have, there's no subways, no buses, and forget it if you want to buy gas for your car or generator, the gas stations either have no electricity, no gas or both. And as for the subways--it was very, very smart for them to have been shut down,
For after the storm passed it was unbelievable to see that the South Ferry station to have been completely flooded, so were other stations in the system in lower Manhattan. Had they not been closed down since Sunday, believe me--there would have been hundreds of people that would have been affected--it could have been a major loss of human life.We don't know when the subways and buses will be operational, but we can walk to the stores, we were not born with wheels, we have feet, and anyway New York has always been a place for pedestrians. We do miss our public transportation though!
