When Hurricane Sandy hit our town, it left a path of destruction, leaving families without power, heat, and in extreme cases, their homes. The day before the storm, my family and I packed up our belongings and brought them out of the basement fearing it would flood. The next day, the wind was howling and blowing sticks and leaves throughout our neighborhood. I was worried that one of the giant trees on my block would fall onto my house, damage a car, or fall onto my neighbor’s house. A tree in my backyard, which was damaged from Hurricane Irene, was swaying back and forth almost to its tipping point. Every so often I would look out the window and find it still swaying.

I remember sitting in my basement, watching television and thinking to myself, “as long as that tree does not fall down and we do not flood, we’ll be extremely lucky.” When we initially lost power, it was around six o’clock in the afternoon. I was sitting in the basement still, fully immersed in my favorite video game, Skyrim. I had been playing for the past few hours when the power went out, I jumped up and ran upstairs, leaving the darkness of the basement behind me. By the time I reached the kitchen, the lights were back. Feeling relieved and thinking the worst of the storm were over, I hustled downstairs to hopefully enjoy a few more hours of entertainment from Skyrim. But when I reached the basement the power went out and this time for good. I joined my family upstairs in the living room. We waited out the night by playing card games like Kings in the Corner. Surprisingly, we did not get a lot of rain by my house and it stopped shortly after the power went out. I peered out from my window to see the wind blowing heavy objects with ease. I stepped outside to feel the full force of the storm. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a wall of water came over the canal and rush into the streets. I yelled to my family, “Come quick. The streets are starting to flood.” My family ran outside to join me and saw the streets. The water was filling up the streets and rose about four feet. My neighbor’s house across the street was surrounded by water and looked like an island in the middle of my street. Realizing the situation, I said to my father, “I’m going to check the basement really quick to see if there’s water.” I quickly went inside and ran to the basement door. Grabbing a flashlight, I hesitantly opened the door fearing I would have a pool in my basement. I shined a light down the stairs and proceeded to look. I reached the bottom of the basement and saw nothing. Looking through the basement I still didn’t see anything. Relieved, I ran upstairs and informed my family. We went to bed that night feeling happy and extremely lucky. I woke up the next day still without power. This pattern continued for the next twelve days.

On the thirteenth day, I came home from school and saw seven electric trucks all from southern states like Alabama, Louisiana, and Georgia. They were working on the power lines and looking at the transformers to see what the problem was. They did this for the next couple of hours and when I went outside to check, they told the rest of the people living on my block, “The power will be restored momentarily. Please shut off all circuit breakers and wait for instructions.” I felt so happy and started to jump up and down with excitement. A half an hour later, my power was restored. I walked over the workers and thanked them all personally for helping us out. Throughout the duration of this storm I saw many people assisting others and doing as much as they could to help. I was pleased to see how thoughtful people can be to one another. I am grateful and lucky that I had no damage to my house and my family and friends survived.