Weathering the Monster Storm

http://blog.silive.com/gracelyns_chronicles/2012/11/sandy_reminded_us_that_our_isl.html#incart_mrt

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — They called her the 100-year storm. We were warned of her imminent danger and painstakingly prepared as best we could for her arrival.

At first we weren’t overly concerned, but then the phone calls started to come in, closing schools, canceling piano and soccer, postponing birthday parties. We started to take her more seriously.

My husband stockpiled batteries, water, flashlights, ice. He put away all the patio furniture, took down all our Halloween decorations. I cooked a week’s worth of meals, bought canned goods and a can opener, and did eight loads of laundry, making sure all the kids’ homework was done, should we lose power.

We braced ourselves for her landfall. Two days later, she is gone and was more devastating than anyone ever imagined. Her name was Hurricane Sandy.

Like most of New York City, Long Island and the Jersey Shore, my family and I were affected by Sandy. But unlike many of the tri-state area, we were among the lucky ones who only suffered loss of electricity, phone and cable, and minimal property damage. I thank God for that.

In Queens, 111 houses burned down because of Sandy, in a close-knit community of firefighters and police officers, many of whom had lost family members on Sept. 11, 2001. Lower Manhattan has been blacked out, Battery Park residents evacuated.

Water from the Hudson River to the left and the East River to the right pummeled Manhattan. Images of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel getting flooded looked surreal. Subways and buses were crippled, DUMBO submerged. Jersey beach houses disappeared, boardwalks crumbled.

My friends on the Upper East Side were not affected, but my brother-in-law, an orthopedic surgeon who lives in Murray Hill, was. Like everyone below 39th Street, he was without water or electricity, his patients among the hundreds in NYU Langone Medical Center and Bellevue infirmed who were transferred to other hospitals because of the loss of power.

When I spoke to him Wednesday night, I was glad he was OK. He had not showered or charged his cell phones for a couple of days and was preparing to stay with unaffected friends in Forest Hills.

Nationwide, the death toll is 50, 30 from New York, 14 from Staten Island.

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Tanker washed ashore on Front Street by Hurricane Sandy.View full sizeDr. Gracelyn Santos
Homes were devastated in South Beach. Entire floors blew away and people were left to sleep in the cold -- and in the dark -- in Eltingville.

On Front Street on Staten Island, near the Alice Austen House, a 700-ton tanker was washed ashore by Sandy. I took my three daughters to see it, assuring them that it was not a sight they’d see again soon.

Driving around neighborhoods in the vicinity of my dental offices in Meiers Corners, Westerleigh and Castleton Corners, 200-year-old trees were downed by Sandy’s 70 mph winds. Great Kills, New Dorp Beach, among so many other communities, were damaged.

Luckily, my in-laws in Grasmere never lost power. Wednesday night we visited them and brought over Chinese takeout for dinner in exchange for use of their electricity to charge our Apple products and Wi-Fi to get some work done. We were so happy to see them, relieved they were unscathed.

My husband Michael’s aunts were not so lucky. Over the shrimp with lobster sauce and hot and sour soup, they described how their Dongan Hills basement flooded, filled up like a fish tank with 10 feet of water.

Their cherished personal belongings were destroyed, their washer-dryer, refrigerator and stove ruined. One of their cars washed away.

Septuagenarians, they described how they were preparing to evacuate when the waters almost swept them down Greeley Avenue. It felt like a scene from the Titanic, they said.

They’d never been so frightened in their lives. They thought it was the end. They were happy when the nightmare was over and that they made it out alive.

As my 12-year-old daughter, Charista, was eating her sesame chicken, she got a text from one of her classmates. One of their mutual friends, a 13-year-old eighth-grader from Tottenville, was not so lucky. She was confirmed dead from Hurricane Sandy. Surely she was mistaken, I thought.

I logged onto SILive.com and, unfortunately, it was true. The young lady and her family didn’t evacuate their homes when Sandy hit our borough, as advised, because they had been looted after Hurricane Irene last year.

On the sidebar of the article was a report that two Staten Island brothers, ages 2 and 4, were separated from the mother by Sandy and have not yet been found, even though rescue workers were searching tirelessly.

Two minivans that were dredged up did not produce them. We said a prayer for them before we went to bed that night, still in the dark.

Wednesday was Halloween and my three daughters did not go trick-or-treating out of respect for the New Yorkers, especially Staten Islanders, whose lives were changed forever last week.

My kids told me they didn’t need any more candy when so much sadness was around them. They were more worried about their Lola Nars and Lolo Jess — my parents — who didn’t have electricity and heat, like most of West Brighton. I’d never been prouder of them.

They were sad that large trees smashed their friends’ houses in half, that they saw on the news that bad people were looting businesses in the wake of the destruction.

Even though I canceled the Halloween party at our house, Charista still extended an invitation to her best friend to come over, a break from the heartbreak of her Midland Beach home being ruined. She couldn’t come, as her family was busy searching for a rental place while they rebuild their home ... and their lives.

Amidst this chaos and post-Sandy horror, some good lessons have been learned. We realized that the family and friends we love and care about are the most important things in life, that everything else can be replaced.

We realized that life is short and precious and could be changed forever at any given moment, and must therefore be cherished and not taken for granted.

We realized that prayer is powerful and love is important all the time, but especially in desperate times of need, and that it is the greatest comfort, above all else.

We realized our time together as a family last week, with no electricity or fancy electronics, playing board games and enjoying conversation, were some of the best ever. We realized we should try to do it more often because we want to, and not because we have to.

Sandy reminded us that, even though no man is an island, our Island is tough, and its folks will survive.