Hurricane Sandy was the biggest hurricane to ever hit Long Island, and my family, friends and I were witnesses of its destruction. Most of Long Island was evacuated; however, most did not want to abandon their homes for fear of losing everything they have worked hard for, and as the storm hit their fears intensified as the storm began leaving behind devastating destruction.
It was the night of the storm and I was getting ready to go to bed. The lights flickered as I approached the stairs to the basement where I was going to sleep. I turned to my mother and said “Wake me up if the power goes out,” when suddenly, the lights turned completely off as I finished up my sentence. I then grabbed a lantern and went off to bed. The next morning I rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom to wash up before I went upstairs. As I entered the dark bathroom, I flicked the light switch out of instinct. Nothing happened, refreshing my memory of how we lost power last night, and reminding me that Hurricane Sandy just hit Long Island.
I decided to pick up one of my friends who lived nearby and check out the devastation caused by Sandy, hoping there was no damage besides a few power outages. I stepped outside, and so far it did not seem that bad, but as I approached Nassau Shores, I saw where the damage was concentrated. I arrived at my friend’s house and pulled up to the curb – or at least as far over to the side as I could go before my tire was touched the saltwater – as my friend hopped across and got into my car.
Our first destination was West Shore Drive off of Merrick Road, which we drove about fifty yards through before turning back as it was completely submerged underwater, like a river where the street should have been. When we saw this, we both just looked at each other in disbelief, knowing that very good friends of ours lived just further down that very street. There was no way to reach them to see if they needed help, especially since cell phone towers were either down from outages or inundated with calls and texts. Our next destination, Alhambra Road, was underwater as well, this time about a hundred yards in.
From all this driving around, I looked at my fuel gauge and decided I might as well top off, and so I headed off to Hess. When I arrived, I saw cars in the right lane in bumper-to-bumper traffic, never moving while the left lane flowed right along. All of a sudden, the line slowly moves up a little bit; that’s when I realized that I was on a gas line. I glanced over the car in front of me to try and see the gas station before realizing it was a few blocks down.
“There is no way I’m waiting on this line,” I said to my friend. “I don’t blame you,” he replied. From there, we went to my house and told my parents what we just witnessed and how ridiculous the lines were.
“It’s a good thing you guys filled up your cars before all of this” said my father, and we were both relieved that we did as well. With nothing to do, we decided to give my dad a hand setting up the generator so we can have some heat; however, it also meant waiting on that gas line at one point or another, whether I liked it or not.
My friend and I decided to wait until one o’clock in the morning to go, figuring there weren’t going to be many people there, only to see lines down the block when we arrived. Then, in the corner of my eye, I saw red gasoline cans and people standing in a much shorter line to fill up. We rushed over there, grateful that we found this line, and began to wait. Within about twenty minutes we had all four cans filled and we were on our way back home. This process repeated until we got power back; yet, it felt much longer than it actually was.
All-in-all, the destruction to my community was not only physical, but, for many, also emotional. We all came together during the storm and helped rebuild our community. Neighbors, and even strangers, were helping each other out in the face of catastrophe. In the aftermath of Sandy, we know now what our town is made of.