It’s Not Time to Return to Normal: A Personal Account of Sandy’s Aftermath
Two days later, they were back in their house, peeling the walls off the beams like it was paper. The first floor was completely exposed with just the exterior and the beams of the wall standing. I helped his mother figure out what clothes of theirs could be saved (after being washed at least once or twice) and what clothes are definitely garbage. There was mud everywhere and it was freezing. In the middle of the day, someone came by to inspect the house and slapped a green paper on the door to acknowledge that the house’s structure is still good. It might have been “good” but there was still no power, gas or heat, so my husband’s parents were forced to stay with relatives on Staten Island that were not affected. I found out later that the neighbors of the relatives they were going to stay at had had their baby the night of the hurricane with no power.
They’re all right for now. My husband’s sister was proudly telling me that she was saved through a boat, and we were already watching YouTube videos of sharks in the ocean. My husband’s mother seems optimistic, though clearly upset. His father seems the most out of it, perhaps because the entire burden falls on him.
Another huge problem we’ve been faced with is the gas shortage situation. We almost got stuck in Staten Island. My husband did try to siphon gas out of his parents’ totaled cars, which were stuck in the swamp, using his mouth—but no luck. We did have some good fortune, though, because someone was kind enough to give us some gas, though it had some water in it which almost made us stuck on Hylan Blvd. But after so much trouble, we made it back to Brooklyn and the next day I went to work.