Surviving Sandy

Well, it appears that the world has to brace itself for much more severe weather patterns.  Hurricane Sandy ripped through the Northeast with wind gusts like none of us have ever seen.  Our building was swaying so much, we actually felt a bit of motion sickness.  Not going to lie: it was frightening.  

During the fierce night, the garage below our building flooded, circuits shorted, and we were left without power or water.  Here's a picture of the hose slowly pumping water out of the garage.

We were told it could take anywhere from hours to days to get power back, so after waiting for a day we decided to take Ladell up on his kind offer to stay with him in Harlem.  (So grateful to have good friends nearby!)  But as luck would have it, just as we pulled away from our building in a cab (no trains, obviously) we got a text saying our power had come back.  So we decided to at least clean up a bit with hot showers at Ladell's, grab some food, and then head home. 

For those who were not around NYC during Sandy, you might be wondering where on earth we expected to find food in the midst of the aftermath.  Well, if you can believe it - places were PACKED!  A lot of areas of Manhattan were left unscathed by the storm, and so people who either had no power or just had a case of cabin fever were heading out to their local eateries.  We tried going to Red Rooster, but it was too crowded!  So we hopped across the street to the more laid-back Corner Social.  It was also very crowded there, but the host was able to wrangle 3 seats for us so we could have some soothing drinks and snack food.  We were so impressed with how gracious the staff was during a stressful time, and how tasty everything was even though it was a limited menu.  We will definitely return under calmer circumstances.  

Major shout out to Corner Social for being a haven!

Lessons Learned from Sandy:

• take meteorologist warnings seriously; many New Yorkers were a bit flippant about Sandy because no one could fathom a hurricane in our area being that bad; this type of severity may sadly be the new norm
• speaking of unprepared, we had enough water for a while but not nearly enough to have lasted us for multiple days; we will definitely know to stock up seriously should we get warnings again
• speaking of lack of water, we learned that a combination of seltzer, cheap beer, flat soda and perishing fruit juice can also flush a toilet... and make your bathroom smell like a dive bar
• we need to own a battery-powered radio
• our families need to have better emergency contact plans; if cell service and texting had been down too, we would have been woefully out of touch

All that said, we consider ourselves among the lucky ones.  The devastation Sandy caused is sobering.  Even as this entry is being written, some of our relatives are still waiting for power and heat to come back.  But we are grateful that our home and our families' homes are still in one piece and we are all safe.  Our thoughts are with those who face a much harder recovery.