🌊 The Sandyversary Edition 🌊

10 years later. Issue #22

St. Francis de Sales church, Oct. 30, 2012

When the biggest one in my lifetime hit us, I wasn’t even in Rockaway. That’s what I thought the most in those months following Hurricane Sandy — guilt. 

Ever since the adults at the beach told me about Hurricane Donna in 1960, the way the ocean waves knocked the bricks off the apartment buildings on the boardwalk, I’d been waiting for this. Waiting and worrying. And now it was here, and instead of being in my hometown I was inside the NBC 4 newsroom on the 7th floor of 30th Rock, doing my job as a social media editor. In the city for the Big One, like a phony. 

The moments leading up to the storm’s arrival often play in my brain like a newsreel. The guy jet skiing at the Battery, looking somehow cool and stupid at the same time. The front of the building in Chelsea that collapsed, before the storm even came. People defiantly telling reporters, I’m not going anywhere, beach people don’t leave, I’ve been through worse, even though they had no idea what was coming.  

And then the storm came. I watched it from the newsroom, but thankfully had a unique view. My parents hosted NBC New York reporters and photographers for the storm, and they rode it out together. The live-look at Rockaway Beach came from my front porch, which was eerie and comforting. (Andrew Siff did a beautiful story on my parents which first aired Thursday night, and again Friday in the 11 p.m. broadcast; it’s not online yet but here’s a preview.)

To describe the hours and days after I’ll go back to the newsreel. The 10-foot sand piles. The stacks of people’s possessions outside. The boardwalk that was ripped up like twigs. My first sight of the burnt-out Boulevard, and marveling at how it didn’t destroy more. Opening the church for the first time with Monsignor Brown, unsure if it had flooded, and seeing the crucifix reflected on the small puddle of water in the center aisle. Corner barbecues, bonfires, bags of new clothes and food. Walking to the beach to make calls since it was the only place with reliable service. 

Having to look at the ocean, now calm and beautiful again, just to get a signal. 

I remember sitting on a busted-up boardwalk staircase and looking at the ocean and feeling betrayed. The ocean, one of my favorite places, turned against us.

What did we ever do to you?

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Days after the storm I stood in the Connolly’s parking lot with dozens of other people who’d gathered for a makeshift meeting with local officials.

Someone from a utility company* told the crowd that they’d have to go online and print out forms for service disruptions.

Look at this fucking idiot, I thought. There’s no power. And then someone in the crowd yelled, you fucking idiot, we don’t have power! 

There were a lot of moments like that, at community meetings and “visioning sessions” and “listening sessions,” where people were angry, and officials were confused. I felt a strong commitment to all of the people and neighborhoods flooded by the storm and was left with questions about rebuilding, relief, what happens next.

I was not technically a reporter when the storm hit, but I desperately wanted to be a real one. This storm gave me a final push.

I found purpose inside school auditoriums and cafeterias and the Knights of Columbus hall in the weeks after the storm, looking at maps and renderings and listening to the real fears and frustrations from so many people. I had so many questions. That curiosity — and some anger, too — has been with me through my nearly a decade as a real reporter. My brain is filled with questions about the government’s response to hurricanes, to pandemics, to who is getting screwed.

When I feel discouraged in any reporting I think back to that meeting in the parking lot, and how far we’ve come. Writing about Sandy has been a privilege.

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There were other significant moments for me that started because of the storm.

The night it all happened I connected with Jess Klein (who I didn’t know) and Jaime Jordan (who I kinda knew). We were all on the mainland, and we were terrified for our families in Rockaway. We wanted to do something useful, so we launched a Facebook page to help connect people and share information. It was a humble effort that really took off. (Jess even went to the White House for her tech expertise.) The three of us were so bonded over those first 8 months – the rush to get the beaches open for the summer, what we felt would be the first test of normalcy– that in 2014, Jaime and I were bridesmaids in Jess’s wedding.

Jess, Jaime, and me, sometime in 2012

We also received a lot of requests from journalists through that Facebook page, and one day I received one from Lisa Colangelo, whose stories I had been reading for years in the Daily News. I was a bit starstruck and messaged her back to say I was also sort of, kind of, trying to be a reporter.

We met for the first time at a meeting at the Knights of Columbus – where we both had the same look and laugh after we were given bracelets that spelled it “Stronger Then Sandy” – and now she’s one of my closest friends. Sometimes I marvel at what can start out of a communal concern, what can be forged out of a disaster.

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I can’t think about Sandy without thinking about the goodness we all saw, from family, friends, neighbors, and strangers.

In those early days, people got their power back sporadically — a random mix of luck and whoever got a guy fast enough to come and fix their electrical panel. On Thanksgiving 2012, our next-door neighbors, the Warrens, let us run an extension cord across our porches so we could watch the parade. It was small but so significant.

A few days after the storm, our doorbell rang and my dad found my CYO soccer coach, Ken Hanaki, on our porch with a bag of pork buns and dumplings.

We hadn’t seen him since 1998, and he and his wife had long moved out of the house they lived in at Fort Tilden to Manhattan. But he still had the roster list with our addresses, not even sure who still lived there but thinking whoever did could use a hot meal. I thought of him randomly last year when thinking about this kindness. I googled him and found out he had died in 2020. I learned so much about him from his obituary and hoped his family knew how much this meant to at least one former player.

There was so much generosity and graciousness in the days and weeks after the storm, it could be overwhelming. People brought down clothing, food, offered their homes. You’d see folks setting up folding tables on the street, and within minutes it was filled with sternos and hot food for anyone.

My family’s block was adopted by country music executives down in Nashville because a neighbor working in the music industry posted about us, and they later made a film about their work. Complete strangers helped us out, and since then I’ve been as generous as I can for any disaster, any fundraiser, because I saw first-hand how every small gesture adds up.

Official relief organizations and our government was disappointing. There was so much red tape, so much waste, so much mismanagement.

What most of us were left with were each other, which is usually the case. That was never clearer to me than after Sandy.

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In the winter after the storm my main inspiration was summer. To get there felt like it would be some sort of victory. But every summer has brought along a new dread.

Last week my mom noted that there no more storms predicted this season. We made it through another year. We start this thought back up every June, and carry it with us through November, where we can sort of relax again.

It always returns, like the tide.

I’ve headed into the ocean for my inaugural swim every summer since Sandy and wondered if this was the year the ocean would betray me again, with something different, worse, permanent. How many more summers do I have before it’s all gone? Is it this year? Will it be August or October? When will it all sink into the sea? 

Then I close my eyes and jump under the first wave, where all I can hear is a hum, all I can feel is that first shock of cold water over my head. I smile underwater. And I don’t think about anything at all.

Other good Sandy reads:

Ten Years Ago, Occupy Sandy Didn’t Just Help New Yorkers, It Redefined Disaster Response [THE CITY]

Low-Lying East Harlem Dodged Sandy’s Worst But Neighborhood’s Still Not Ready for Next Storm [THE CITY]

This was taped to the door at St. Francis sometime before Thanksgiving, 2012. I think of it often as a reminder to be good and to be grateful for everything. Thanks for reading!