Surviving Sandy

In late August 2011, Hurricane Irene pounded the northeast United States. The region, including New Jersey, was hit with strong winds and heavy rain which toppled trees and flooded houses in my own neighborhood. While we managed to escape without any lengthy loss of power, we had significant enough water damage to our basement for us to have the floors redone. Many neighbors endured even worse damage, and some were left without power for over a week.

The common refrain to that storm was that it was a “once in a lifetime event”. While I temporarily considered adding a backup battery to my sump pump and purchasing a generator, the shock of the event faded away and like many, the sense that the region would be hit by such a strong storm in the near future became remote. Wow, that was a miscalculation.

I was at an offsite for my job the week before Hurricane Sandy. The buzz around the coming storm was still faint by the time I was driving back on Thursday, October 25^th. I heard some reports on news radio, but more of the buzz was still focused on the coming election. By Friday morning, I made the decision to buy supplies just to be on the safe side. I was still on the “first mover” side at this point. I took a few gallons of bottled water from a shelf which was completely stocked and purchased some non-perishables.

By Saturday, there was a strong sense from the general public of “Oh crap, this hurricane is actually going to hit us.” I managed to navigate my way through a forty person line to purchase a generator, only to find out that my purchase enable me to pre-order one that might (I stress might) arrive on Monday, the day of the hurricane’s arrival. By Saturday night, there was little to do than wait.

Monday started innocuously enough, and like waiting for in the dentist’s waiting room, there was a lingering feeling of “c’mon, let’s just get this over with”. By the afternoon the wind started to pick up and we passed time with watching Little House in the Prairie and news updates on television. By the time we ate an early dinner, the ferocity of the storm began to pick up and wind gusts grew increasingly powerful. We lost power at around 7pm and as we put the kids to bed under candlelight, things got bad fast.

I’m not sure how my kids slept through this, but the wind pounded the house as the windows and walls creaked. Our youngest daughter was freaked out, so I spent the night sleeping in my daughters’ room, and used noise-cancelling headphones to muffle the chaos outside. By the time the worst of the storm had passed us by, we realized that we were extremely fortunate. When all was said and done, we lost power for five days, we did one long trek to find an open gas station only once, and my train commute was wrecked for two weeks. But we escaped any damage to our house and we still managed to have heat and hot water. Most importantly, everyone in our family and our friends emerged safe.

But walking away from this experience, I tried to process some of my many thoughts:

• Hurricane Sandy brought worst in people. Like any catastrophe, we started to get a glimpse of what happens when basic social order breaks down and we move into a Darwinian “every man for himself” world. There were reports of people pulling guns on each other in mile-long lines for gas. People were forced to place generators under chain and lock when reports emerged of people stealing these units. Looting and other opportunistic crime occurred in some of the harder hit areas, as police services were stretched and focused in rescue and recovery operations.

• Hurricane Sandy brought out the best in people. My wife and I were able to experience a great deal of kinship with our neighbors, as people expressed concern about those who were hardest hit and people volunteered resources to those who had less. E-mails constantly went out from those who had power restored with offers to have people power up devices and phones. Even the local Kings grocery store opened its doors to refugees, letting people camp out in their cooking class studio to power up their devices.

•  I’m starting to suspect that this is the new normal. Hurricane Irene was supposed to be the once in a lifetime storm, and Hurricane Sandy completely crushed that myth. Whether it’s due to global warming or another cyclical phenomenon, I can’t be comfortable thinking that this won’t happen again in the near future. I’ve heard the numerous friends and neighbors speak of installing natural gas-powered whole house generators. We’ll see if the resolve for these projects wane as time passes, but I don’t think it will.

• There was a simplicity of life without electricity that was telling about our (okay, my) addiction to electricity, and by extension, electronic devices. My wife lovingly teased me about it, but it’s true. A life without electronics and internet access was paralyzing and inconceivable to me. I had to (gasp) crack open books and magazines and (double gasp) provide my absolute undivided attention to my family without mentally wandering if I had gotten an important e-mail from work which required my immediate attention, or having a bright idea which required me to either type out a reminder to myself or fire off an e-mail, tweet or Facebook entry. At some point, I surrendered to being off the grid and there was a lot of good to it.

Above all, it did serve as a reminder of the frailty of life. As my pastor said in a timely sermon the week after the hurricane hit, the past weeks were a stark reminder of not just of how fragile and precious life is, but the importance in trusting and viewing our lives in the context of an all-powerful and loving God. Our life of faithful dependence on God manifests itself in a life unencumbered by anxiety even in the mist of the biggest storms. We can, with much prayer, acknowledge His power and His love and not be afraid, come what may.