One Year After Sandy

One year ago New York was struck by the most destructive and deadliest hurricane of the 2012 season, Hurricane Sandy. Even though Sandy wasn't at it's peak intensity when it hit the city, it still left a trail of destruction so large that New York has not yet been able to rebound completely.

As a resident of the area affected by the loss of power, I was days without being able to contact family and friends. When the power came back we received a load of e-mails, text messages and Facebook messages from people who were worried. To save time I wrote a mass e-mail to all saying that we were fine and explaining what happened and what our days had been like.

To remember those days after Sandy, here is a copy of that e-mail:

Downtown Manhattan in The Dark

LIFE IN THE BLACKOUT

Dear friends,

I am back, and now I can say that I am a survivor of The Life without power. As a legitimate representant of the city-bug class my one and only experience of this kind had been in 2009 when I went camping, but while at the campsite out nocturnal companions where owls and some kind of goats, I wondered what would be  our nocturnal companions in New York City?

THE BEGINNING 

It all started at 8:45 pm on Monday (29), Sandy was already hitting the city and we were watching it all on TV until all of a sudden there was nothing more to see. I guess everybody has been out of power at some point in their lives, the darkness is followed by a few moments of doubt, then by a distant cry as you hit some unidentified object in the search for a flashlight, candle or alternative source of light (cellphone).

The first night we sat in the kitchen trying to guess for how long we would be without power. I thought that by morning everything would have been solved but Curtis thought that "No way, when the power goes out in the city the problem is serious, last time this happened was in 2003". I though he was exaggerating. 

Until this moment, we still had phone reception, 3G, hot water and almost all of the basic things in a daily life. By morning, we saw that not only the power wasn't back, and we now also didn't have phone reception, 3G, hot water and all those basic things in a daily life. Now what? We decided to go out and try to better understand how big the problem was.

THE DAMAGES

In our area, one of the streets most affected by the storm had been Avenue C, we knew this because before the lights went out we saw a picture of cars half covered by water. I guess that this might or not be impressive to you depending on where you live, I imagine some of my friends in São Paulo might be floating down the street inside their cars as we speak. Still, if Avenue C was the picture of chaos, that's where we are going.

Avenue C

It was a sad scenario, fallen trees, people getting buckets of water out of their basements, others just desolate, looking at the pool of mud without knowing what to do, probably mentally calculating the cost of the damage which definitely wouldn't be little as many business use theirs basements for stocking products. 

Flooded Basement on Ave. C

But still some bars didn't let the ball drop and were serving wine at special prices under candle light. A glass of wine would be great, but cash to pay for it would be even better. Slaves to our debit and credit cards we were again betrayed by the system. We decided to keep our last 10 dollars for something more essential. If no one knew when the light would be back, getting cash was vital, but it was getting late and cold, today we would just go back home.

The next day, without subway or buses and with cab drivers charging 75 dollars for a ride that would normally cost $10, we walked to Union Square with the hope to find a bank that would be open or a place to charge our phones.

What we did find were our beloved food-trucks, that weren't just selling food to costumers but also had placed outlets for the peoples disposal. We got ourselves a grilled cheese and charged our phones, this was the first time that I was able to send my mother a message saying all was fine. 

We spoke to people in worse situation than ours, with no water at all at home. Someone said there was light on the 20 something streets and up, we walked up there and found the border of the with/without power on 26th street. All the business on the border were packed with people, starbucks, drugstores, banks, all full of people looking for outlets to charge their phones and wifi connection. We decided to walk further north searching for what we believed would be a quieter place, and with a bit of luck an open supermarket. After buying some food, getting some cash and charging our phones in a bank with other 20 something people, we came back home.

What have we learned today? That an agglomeration of people on the sidewalk is a spot where you get cellphone reception, that following the sound of generators we will find a line of people waiting to charge their phones or a little bodega trying to survive, and that life Uptown continues like nothing ever happened.

Flooded Subway Station

People standing at a corner with cellphone reception

The border of the with / without-power

THE ALTERNATIVES

While all this happened, Curtis and I analyzed our alternatives. It looked like the obvious thing to do was to escape, like we saw many doing, including our roommate, to get our things and flee the city. The biggest problem was that most of our friends also lived in affected areas, and for those who didn't it was hard for us to ask people to let two adults and one dog move in until it was all over. 

Being the only alternative the non-alternative, we stayed at home.

THE COLD

One of the reasons why Sandy was so brutal is that she collided with a cold front coming from Canada. After the storm the temperature fell drastically. Taking a bucket bath is easy, but I want to see you taking a bucket bath in a 37º weather, in a house with no heating. God forbid, but if this ever happens to you here is the secret to success:

1- Light up all your candles in the bathroom. For our little New York bathroom 13 candles were enough, almost anywhere else I believe you would need around 30.

2- Boil water on your biggest pot (you might need two pots). While the water boils, the candles are warming up the bathroom.

3- Trow some boiling water in the tub or shower floor so you don't step in the cold. The water's vapor will imitate the hot shower vapor (hopefully).

4- Have fun.

The baths were tough, the nights worse. As I'm not crazy to sleep with candles on, we put all of our blankets in the bed, which aren't many, as the heater usually works very well and we only use a light cover. Poor Sasha was always shivering in her bed so we had her sleep with us.  We used her blanket to cover up our feet and Sasha herself as a fluffy warm snoring fur pillow. 

THE NIGHTS IN THE CITY

Winter is coming and around 6 p.m the sun is already down. In a situation like this people of good sense would stay at home playing cards, right? Wrong. We have more than good sense, we also have parenting responsibilities. Our dear Sasha was well trained not to go in the house, but the thing is that she really won't go even on a doggy mat. It was getting late and she was by the front door looking at us with that belly ache face. We decided to take her out. With flashlights in hand, we opened the front door, a thought occurred to me and I asked Curtis "Should we bring a knife or something?" To what he answer by pointing at his coat pocket with a smile of I-know-very-well-of-my-responsibilities-to-protection-this-family. Good.

The street was total darkness, we left our flashlights off so as not to became easy prey. Sasha didn't even smell the curb and went straight to the subject. She was almost done when we heard footsteps. Two shadows were walking in our direction. I saw that Curtis put his hand in his coat pocket and I froze, I must admit that my first thought was "Zombies!". Now they were really close, two men, one of them looked at us with a big smile and said "Hey guys" and just kept walking. We took a breath of relief. Encouraged by this encounter we decided to go around the block. We saw other people, with kids, dogs, people just like us but in the dark with flashlights.

After this, exploring the neighborhood at night became our preferred activity. People were kinder and more talkative, as I believe we are when not under constant spell of our smartphones. We met our neighbors, Sasha was invited to bars and restaurants, and we made friends with the owner of a bodega that had a generator and said we could charge our phones there whenever we wanted to.

The bodega where we charged our phones

Me standing in the middle of the street 

TIME OFF

And now what to do with all this free time? Curtis' store was affected by the blackout and he was off all of these days. We decided to be productive and paint and redecorate the apartment, we cleaned our closet and did everything that we had to do but could never find time to do it. 

We rediscovered our playing-cards and spent long hours sitting in the kitchen just talking and making simple foods like soups and sandwiches. 

I started to detach from power and to attach to the lack of it. When the lights come back I would be happy, but a part of me would be sad too.

HELP

On Friday morning, a huge truck parked in front of our building, bringing water and food that would be distributed at 1 p.m. It was 8 a.m and the line was already growing, everybody in the sidewalk was standing under a freezing cold. It was hard to see how bad the least favored ones were affected by the disaster, while the madams of uptown made faces at us and whispered "Absurd" because we were sitting on the bank's floor while waiting for our phones to charge. Little by little we unraveled the resources in our own broken neighborhood and decided to boycott uptown and their stupid power.

At 8a.m the line was already going around the corner

At 4:55 p.m on Friday (2) we were at home boiling water for another bath when we heard the TV turn on and the whole neighborhood applauding and whistling as if the most beautiful spectacle had come to an end.

Thank you all so much for the e-mails, messages and for your friendship. We are doing great. Let the next blackout begin!!