Sandy Days, Wintry Nights

Just as the power went off in Manhattan, my blog decided to come back to life. Sure, we're a few days out, but I've been busy getting back to normalcy.

Sunday: The subway shuts down at 7pm. People scramble to make last minute arrangements. The supermarket is packed; they've sold out of bread and the lines stretch deep into the aisles. The supermarket intercom is playing 'It's Rainin' Men', which I find funny, if not in the best of taste. 

Monday: Storm day. Kind of a disappointment for me; in my neighborhood there's not much wind and rain. We never lose power or even the internet.  I end up spending most of the time watching movies with friends (The 39 Steps followed by Brazil).

Tuesday: Time to survey the devastation. Downed tree branches, general debris everywhere. We head to Red Hook but find it curiously normal-looking; the flooding has receded. We head up to Lower Manhattan and find it a ghost town; no power, not even traffic lights. We're supposed to be checking up on elderly residents but find ourselves caught in a catch-22: none of them can let us into their buildings because the buzzers don't work!

Wednesday: Still no subway form Brooklyn to Manhattan. I work from home for a few hours. I make a call out to Westchester and discover that they've lost power almost completely.

Thursday: They've established two bus lines from Brooklyn into the city; one from Atlantic Station and the other from Jay Street. Jay Street is closer so I go there to find a half-mile line waiting for me. The shuttle only goes up Lexington Avenue, so I take it to Grand Central and walk across the island to get to work.  Our office is just over the line, and we still have power. Four blocks south, and nothing is open.

Coming back home I take the bus from Grand Central. The line there is tremendous; I wait about an hour and a half before finally getting on. Driving through a totally dark Manhattan is a strange experience.

Friday:  Same story. It's eerie waiting in a cold, dark, windy corridor, then looking up and seeing a brightly lit Chrysler Building shining back, reminding you that you're in New York and not Soviet Russia.

Saturday: Time to give back. I join a group of volunteers in Canarsie as we hand out information packets to residents of southeastern Brooklyn who suffered most heavily from the storm. Many of them still don't have power, which drives them out into the streets and makes them easier to find. Some of them don't speak English, but my Chinese is good enough to direct them to the number they should call if FEMA is dragging their feet.

Sunday: This time I'm up in Harlem working with kids, doing the arts-and-crafts stuff I was never particularly good at. Some of the kids want to play Connect Four, which I'm much better at (though I try to give them a fighting chance).

Monday: Things more or less back to normal, at least where I am.  Still, there's a lot of work that needs to be done - more volunteering scheduled for Wednesday.