After Hurricane Sandy On Long Island
After a total of 9 days without electricity or heat, many of us here on Long Island, NY can begin to put Hurricane Sandy behind us. The effects of the hurricane continue in the form of gas rationing at the pumps, if you can find an open gas station at all. There are still thousands of people here without heat or electricity though, and many may not see a working light bulb in their houses until Thanksgiving or beyond. It’s been a tough November so far.
Just to cap off Sandy’s visit, we had a nor’easter blow through the region with more high winds and snow. That cost us another day of power and heat outages after having these staples back for only a day. Definitely a tough November.
Here on Long Island there’s plenty of angry public talk between the politicians and our local power company, the result being many of the higher-ups will likely be losing their jobs over these outages. No doubt there will be panels and commissions set up to figure out why it’s taken so long to fix the problems. Like it or not (mostly not), the finer points of this situation are well above my pay grade. I’m just angry, like most folks here.
The day after the storm here in my town, Huntington, NY. An adventurous kid riding over some power lines to shoot this video:
Aside from sleeping cold, wearing most of the clothes I could manage to put on once the sun went down, eating only dry cereal and bottled water for several days and not being able to get more than a few hours’ sleep at a time for over a week, there actually were some bright moments.
In our immediate area, tree and electrical workers from out-of-state, primarily from Michigan, Tennessee and Georgia, did all the heavy lifting. I now have three new, favorite states. Aside from bringing us back in to the land of functioning electricity, without exception these out-of-state crews were incredibly sympathetic to our situation. These crews were some of the friendliest faces we saw for over a week.
Late one afternoon on one of the colder days a crew from Georgia showed up to remove the fallen trees and branches from the power lines leading to my cottage; this needed to be done before the power could be switched back on. Had Santa Claus himself showed up instead, I don’t think I could have been happier.
As I was talking to one of the crew, I offered them some bottled water, really the only thing I had in the place. Some folks show up to help you out, you offer them something, just good form. They politely declined, and then I guess seeing I was bundled up and cold, offered me a couple of candy bars. A small gesture from them, but it meant a lot to me. Like I said, I’ve now got some new favorite states and people.
We’re getting back up to speed now here at Ztrains.com and will have new articles online soon. Stay warm!
Category: Blog
