Superstorm Sandy

Whew, are we glad that’s over!!

Hurricane Sandy slammed into the east coast on October 29, but it dominated our lives even days before it hit. We were bombarded with warnings that this was going to be the storm of the century, a very serious event, that we could be without power for up to a week, that we should prepare for every eventuality.

My first inclination was to stick my head in the sand. We’ve lived out here for several years now and have experienced quite a number of doomsday forecasts only to receive a fairly unspectacular amount of wind/rain/snow. I have come to loathe the fretful, hand-wringing anxiety that overshadows the long days preceding these events, and so I tried to dismiss the warnings. But they were persistent and insistent, and eventually I had to succumb to the reality that yes, this was going to be a big one.

We cleared the yard of all blowable objects and stocked up on water, canned food, wood, batteries, fuel for the generator. Not knowing what else to do to prepare for what felt like the impending apocalypse, we just kept going back to the store for more supplies, again and again. I became convinced that this was all just a conspiracy by the supermarkets and gas stations to jump start the economy.

The hurricane was expected to hit Monday evening, but winds were to be high enough earlier in the day that both Elliot’s and Rob’s schools were cancelled. We all just sat at home waiting.

The power went out at 10am, and I yelled, “NOOOOO!!!!” I had planned to do a few more loads of laundry and run the dishwasher yet before we expected the power to go out. There wasn’t even any wind yet! Fortunately, after 2 hours it came back on. That was when I realized the power of motivation. I had literally been trying to get myself to clean the house for (maybe even longer than) 2 weeks. Suddenly, with the threat of power going out at any moment, I was scrubbing toilets, vacuuming floors, organizing toys, dusting wall hangings, washing windows. Seriously, washing windows.

At about 4pm, our neighbor knocked on the door. “I just noticed a tree that looks like it could fall on your house.” Rob walked over to investigate, and yes indeedy, with just a little bit of encouragement, that tree could very likely fall straight onto our house. It was a skinny tree, but very tall.

In no time at all, Rob and the 3 neighbor men were strategizing the plan of attack. By the time they hooked a rope from the top of the tree to the back of a truck, the winds were picking up and I was getting nervous.

We have a video of it, although admittedly it doesn’t look that exciting. You have to believe us, it was a really tall tree that could’ve smashed through our back room!

So with that bit of excitement and averted disaster out of the way, we came back inside to find that the power was out again, and we knew it was going to be a while until it came back.

We decided to make the most of the situation and had a party. The neighbors from across the street came over for a candlelit dinner. One thing we were hugely grateful for throughout this experience was that we have a gas stove and not electric!

Through dinner we could hear the wind howling outside. When we all went on the front porch to say goodnight, we could see the roots on the large tree in front of our house bulging out of the ground as the tree swayed. We decided to move our cars across the street in case the tree fell on them, and then we prayed all night that it wouldn’t fall on the house.

Praise God, the tree stayed in tact, and we didn’t have any damage at all from the storm. Sadly, we all know that many, many others couldn’t say the same.

A huge tree fell at the end of our street, taking out power lines on all four sides of the intersection.

This tree above pummeled a house and SUV.

All over the place are massive trees and their enormous root systems ripped out of the ground and onto their sides.

Also, electric poles snapped in half, and whole blocks of poles were leaning over.

Our cell phones didn’t work for days afterward. We had to drive down the mountain to get reception. It was quite a while before I was able to talk to my mom, and she filled me in on the devastation along the coast – the homes literally swept away, the rollercoaster in the ocean, the entire neighborhood in Queens burned to the ground.

We had obviously gotten by with much greater fortune. So far our experience felt like an unplanned camping trip. We actually got to know our neighbors really well through this experience and felt a great sense of community. All of us had differing levels of amenities, and we pitched in together to help each other out. Most nights we alternated having dinner at each other’s houses. Then we would huddle around our little DVD player that was hooked up to the generator and watch movies.

For the first few days, we used our generator to plug in the fridge and one or two other things as we needed them. It was pouring rain, so we kept it underneath our porch with a line into the basement window. Once the rain stopped, one of us – I’ll not say who said what – suggested to the other that perhaps we should move the generator out from the porch so the carbon monoxide would have more air to circulate and not leak into the house through the basement. That suggestion was irritably rejected. Ahem. 

Yes, that picture would be a fire engine, a police car, and an ambulance sitting outside our house at 2:00am. We had been startled awake by an irritating beep. By the time we realized it was the carbon monoxide detector, the intermittent beeping had turned into a continuous, piercing wail. We groaned and started throwing stuff into a bag, packed up the kids and got into the car. We called a hotel but were told all the hotels in the entire area were booked full with hurricane refugees. We reasoned we could probably open some windows, keep the generator turned off, and be fine. But, how would we know for sure the levels were safe? We decided to call to see if someone could come out and just measure the levels for us. As you can see, we got more than just one person. Yep. I think the kids will remember that part of the storm experience for sure.

The ensuing days were spent going to the lake to fill bottles of water so we could flush toilets, huddling around fireplaces trying to keep warm, and searching for gasoline to keep our generator going. It was a main event each day, talking to people and exchanging leads on what stations had fuel and how long the lines were. We spent one afternoon here. 

Our friend Jen ingeniously brought not only a wheelbarrow to transport all our gas cans, but also a thermos full of hot chocolate!

When we first got there we were told there was a $40 limit per family. Over 3 1/2 hours later, Rob finally made it to the front of the line (the kids and I had bailed hours earlier) and was told the limit was now $20. 3 1/2 hours for 5 gallons of gas.

In all, we were without power for 9 days. Rob missed 5 days of work and Elliot missed 6 days of school. Over a week went by like a blur.

Other than our little DVD player in the front room, we had no technology. I thought I would really love that; I hate our lives being so overrun with noise and distractions. And it was good – for the kids! ;-) I loved that they weren’t watching TV all day. And I had the bewildering experience of actually sitting in silence every once in a while not knowing what to do with myself. When has that ever happened in my entire life?? But I was surprised by how much I missed feeling connected to the outside world.

Look, the TV is off and they’re using their imaginations and being creative!

We got out quite a bit to keep warm in various places – the library, the church, the diner.

About halfway through the power outage, our friend Jonathon took pity on us and came over to hook up our generator to the breaker box. We thought it couldn’t be done, and if it could, our generator wouldn’t be big enough to handle it. It was like he had performed  magic when all the lights in the house and – hallelujah! – the boiler came to life. After that, our experience was transformed. We still had no running water, but with heat and light, life was suddenly wonderful.

After another strange weather event – a 2.2 earthquake in our neighboring town (seriously??) – we got a snowstorm.

Then, mercifully, on November 7, the power company fixed the downed lines on our road and water poured forth from our faucets and internet and TV once more filled our house with noise. Woohoo!

Last Friday, on November 9, Sophie finally celebrated Halloween at her preschool. (Elliot had a trunk or treat at his school way back on Oct. 20, and I sadly didn’t get a photo of him, obviously expecting to on Halloween!)

Life is finally back to normal!

Special thanks for Anne and Darrin and Jen and Jonathon for graciously letting us hang out at their places for hours on end taking showers, doing laundry, and eating their food!