Surviving Hurricane Sandy with Neighbors #Sandy

This week has been totally surreal. Having survived September 11 and the 2003 blackout, I thought I had seen it all but Hurricane Irene really blew me away. After being without power and water for days, I finally had access to a television and saw the devastation that Hurricane Sandy has wreaked across the New York Tri-State area. Living in Lower Manhattan, we lost power Monday night as the Con Ed transformer station blew up leaving us in total pitch black darkness.

You can’t imagine the feeling of living in one of the busiest, most brightly lit and noisiest cities to all of sudden seeing nothing but blackness without even a flicker of light except for the tip of the Empire State Building. There was just silence except for the sound of fire trucks.

At that point, after staring at the darkness for an hour hoping the power would come back, we just went to sleep. What else was there to do, right? Ever the optimist, I thought the power will be back on when we awake. Wrong!

As I had gone shopping the day before, we had plenty of food so I made a full breakfast. Ah for once, I was happy to have a gas stove. While I was cooking, one of my neighbors knocked on the door to ask if we were all right and wanted to know if we needed anything.

Let me say that I literally have talked to  this woman a few times over the past year and could not even tell which apartment she lives on our floor but I appreciated her thinking of us. Amazing how people will help those in a crisis.

After breakfast, we trudged down 11 flights of stairs in the dark. Apparently the back up lights only last 8 hours and were long gone. We headed around the neighborhood to survey the damage.

There were a few downed trees but not no broken windows or flooding. With the exception of a deli which had a generator, there was nothing open and I mean nothing. So we headed back to our apartment where we hung out in the lobby. It was like watching an full scale evacuation. People were leaving in droves. We pretty much hung out in our apartment.

We headed to our neighbors apartment for cocktail hour because hey sitting in the dark with only candles sounds pretty sad.

Let me say that our little corner of the floor is friendly enough but we do not socialize and I know just the bare essentials and vice versa.

Lucky for our cocktail hour since I found out that my neighbor had booked a room uptown. Her mom in Canada found a room. Although I would have stuck it out, I thought it might be a good idea to get out while I can.

I was lucky because I would have been one of those thousands of people waiting on line for bus to work. We experienced having to deal with trying to take the bus uptown so we could meet friends to go trick or treating. The bus lines were so long, that walking 50 blocks was faster than waiting for the bus.

I am happy that we made the effort because it gave my daughter some semblance of normalcy after being in a darkened apartment for few days.  What the most disturbing part of our experience was driving around downtown. It literally went from nothing but lights to darkness.

Here is a little video I took of our drive.

The rest of the week was filled with work and trying to keep a 9 year old occupied in an office. I must admit she was a trooper sitting around for hours while I worked.

As you can imagine everyday we waited for news about the power coming back on. The one thing I am grateful for is internet access to keep up on FB friends in the area because it gave me hope to get me through and of course, the news that the power was finally turning on. As I went to sleep on Friday, so many had gotten their power turned back on and yet no word from our building.

But when I got up, our neighbor called to tell me that woo hoo!! lights would be on soon and we could head home. I was never so happy to get home to my little abode.

And the piece de resistance, seeing the Empire State Building and all the surrounding the buildings all lit up.

 My daughter and I compared those in Staten Island, New Jersey and others who were devastated by the storm had a minor hiccup in our life. My prayers go out to those who are still waiting for power and who have lost their homes.