Emigration Diary: Powerless
I was all set with a post describing how our
Hallowe’en celebrations were going last week. I was aware of the
impending Frankenstorm being whipped up at sea and the damage it had
done in the Caribbean but having been here through quite a few
media-frenzied storm watches that came to not much more than a bit of
wind and rain, I wasn’t too concerned.
When we learned it was highly likely that there would be power
outages on Long Island, we did thankfully take some precautions. We
filled the cars up with gas and got in some camping gas, non-perishable
food and plenty of batteries and flashlights. Our water is pumped from a
well and requires power to run so we filled the baths up with water,
just in case. We had notification that school was to be closed on Monday
and Tuesday.
At about 2pm the curiosity got the better of us and we headed to a
nearby beach to look at the waves. We were expecting Sandy to hit at
about 8pm. We are on the North Shore of Long Island so this was not as
dangerous as it sounds. The only real risk we were taking was that we
could be hit by a falling tree. The storm surge on this side of the
island wasn’t expected until about 10pm.
In
the village they had boarded up windows and lined their doorways with
sandbags. It was a full moon so the tide was to be very high and the
village regularly suffers from flash flooding anyway. What we saw from
the beach was scary. At low tide, the waves were already about 8 feet
high, the water was crashing against houses in Asharoken. At Crab Meadow
beach there was so much sand being blasted by the wind that a second or
two outside the car was the most efficient exfoliation treatment I’ve
ever experienced. The playground fence waved in the air like a ribbon. A
little subdued by the power Mother Nature was exhibiting, we went home
to safety.
It was George’s birthday and as he is not a lover of birthday cake I
had been soaking raisins in tea to make a brack. I mixed up the rest of
the ingredients and preheated the oven. The power flickered. I sighed
and reset the oven. It flickered again. The kids came upstairs,
indignant that there was something wrong with the TV. The cable was
resetting when it went off again. This time it stayed off for a few
minutes. We looked around for candles. The power came back for another
minute then went off and stayed off. I wrapped up the brack mixture and
figured I could bake it the next day. Meanwhile, it was getting pretty
windy.
We stepped outside to try to charge phones in the car. The sky
flickered an eerie blue colour. It wasn’t quite like lightning; we
wondered if it was power lines or substations. High above us the oak and
chestnut trees swayed like daffodils in the breeze. Where we stood was
sheltered. I heard an ominous creak from a neighbour’s tree and we went
back inside. George set up the camping stove in the garage and steamed
some mussels I’d had in the freezer and made some fried garlic bread. We
had thought to get wine and beer in. With the open fire lit, good food
and the weather staying outside it was actually a rather pleasant
evening.
On Tuesday, I went out to get some last minute supplies for the
Hallowe’en party I was to host in the 2nd Grade classroom. Still without
power, I hadn’t seen or heard any news. This is America though, right?
Of course Party City was going to be open. It was the day before
Hallowe’en, their busiest day of the year. All the traffic lights were
out. One of the scariest things I’ve ever done was to turn left onto a
dual carriageway with no traffic lights. On the radio it said to treat
broken traffic lights like a four way stop sign. I seemed to be the only
one doing this.
Party City was closed. So was nearly everywhere else. I walked into a
grocery store that was lit by one light, the frozen aisles taped off
and the lone teller adding up bills with a calculator. I bought some
Hallowe’en candy and activity books for the kids. The extent of the
damage began to become clear to me as I passed hundreds of uprooted
trees, lying across electricity cables or resting on people’s roofs. We
were lucky, our garden was just ankle-deep in leaves and twigs. We raked
up 20 bags. George cut down a few broken branches and dead trees. All
around the buzzing of chainsaws could be heard.
We heard that the village still had power and hadn’t suffered too
much damage. The water had apparently come up and gone back down,
flooding only as much as it ever had. Restaurants were open and very
busy. After some barbecued salmon, we walked down with all the phones
and chargers. We were welcomed by notices like this:
Wednesday was Hallowe’en. Northport village usually does what they
call Safe Hallowe’en where the local shops and small businesses give out
candy to costumed kids in broad daylight. I had thought the fact that
it wasn’t considered safe for children to go trick or treating in their
own neighbourhood kind of sad but this year it was absolutely not safe.
Downed wires dangled everywhere. I walked down with Thor and Captain
Hook and they collected quite a bit of booty. George took them around
the immediate neighbourhood afterwards and they got even more.
As the week ended, the temperature started to drop. We got warnings
of snow. Shops sold out of batteries. Gas stations sold out of gas. We
lined up for ages to get tables in restaurants. Boiling water on the
camping stove to wash dishes or ourselves became tedious. Constantly
filling the cistern from the bathwater with a bucket was a pain.
Desperately trying to conserve phone charge but still searching Twitter
for information and updates was stressful. I had a constant feeling of
living in the dark.
There
were some highlights of course. George began putting granite rocks in
the fire which we would wrap in a towel to warm our bed. I grew quite
fond of my pet rock. We ate extremely well, lots of restaurant food and
barbecues. The restaurant I work in was so busy I got extra shifts and
lots of tips. As I stacked firewood with my kids I realised people rent
logcabins to pay for these experiences.
Watching the news today, now that we’ve finally got our power back, I
realise how lucky we were. We sustained no damage or injuries and we
had the facilities to stay warm and well fed. We may have been 148 hours
without power or running water but we always had somewhere safe and dry
to live. It was an inconvenience not a disaster.
It’s not completely over yet. School remains closed for another few
days as there are no safe routes for school buses. Queues for gas still
extend for miles. Outside every home there are bags of leaves and
chopped branches as people attempt to clean up and return to normality.
Slowly, public transport is beginning to run to schedule and people are
returning to work. I see that for thousands of people not very far away
that this is not yet the case. Some people’s houses are ruined, some
people’s livelihoods, some lost family and friends. Many remain in
shelters requiring food and blankets. Snow is still forecast and
thousands are still without heat. It will take a lot more time and help
for some to recover. I never would have thought this kind of thing could
happen in New York, the city that never sleeps. It was brought to a
complete standstill for almost a week. Sandy was a stark reminder of how
vulnerable we really are and I never again will take a hot shower for
granted.
