Tenth Anniversary of Sandy and a Music Tribute

A strange combination, Sandy and a musical tribute, but that's the timing of this.

Today for the New Jersey/downstate New York area (and many other communities in the Northeast United States), marks the 10th anniversary of Superstorm Sandy. 

At 7:30 pm on October 29, 2012, Sandy hit New Jersey just to the north of Atlantic City.  That night and the following day, the storm slammed this area, including Long Island/New York City.

The storm is long gone, but not forgotten.  

Repairs are still being made, and we don't know if precautions being made will be enough. 

The vulnerability of the New York City mass transit system is just one concern out of many. 

Although I don't live in the area most impacted, Sandy is very much on my mind today.

I was born in the New York City suburb of Queens (which is on Long Island) in the Rockaways, one of the severely damaged area.  My childhood best friend, who lived in Brooklyn, and her husband, took in people who were more severely impacted than they were.

My spouse and I visited Brooklyn the following May, when the damage was still fresh enough for me to smell (yes, floods have a smell.)

Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn, May 2013

During that trip, we visited Kingsborough Community College, which lies near the ocean.  My friend's spouse (a senior citizen) was a student at the college.

Trees were waking up after the winter although some had been killed by the storm. Spring is the time of renewal and rebirth, and at the time, I blogged:

"This past Sunday, we visited the campus of Kingsborough County Community College in Manhattan Beach (one of the many neighborhoods in the New York City borough of Brooklyn) for their annual Spring Concert.

Kingsborough County Community College is considered one of the top five community colleges in the United States.  One of the perks springtime students enjoy is the ability to use a private beach on the campus - what could be more perfect than a New York City college campus with its own beach?

Well, not when a Superstorm like Sandy hits.

 Meanwhile, at the concert auditorium, people were arriving, many of them (and many of the musicians) senior citizens.  I heard more than one friend greet another with tales of losing their homes or apartments.  That story is all too familiar to me, in my area of upstate New York, due to our own flooding in September, 2011.  But our flood was river water, not the ocean.

Two choruses performed - the "Day Chorus" of day students and volunteers, and the "Night Chorus" of night students and volunteers.  One of my friends is a member of both choruses.  We were also treated to the Brooklyn Wind Ensemble and Concert Band.

There were a number of songs with a religious theme, or "river" imagery (as in "crossing over to the other side").   One song in particular, Arlo Guthrie's "Valley to Pray", was an absolute pleasure to listen to, as was a medley of song from Les Miserables.

In the aftermath of Sandy, it just seemed surreal to sit in that audience.  But, after all, life doesn't stop after a disaster - nor should it."

In December of 2018, I visited a different section of Brooklyn.  A cousin drove my spouse and I around to different areas of the borough on Christmas Day after we watched a movie in Kings Plaza.

This area, called Geritssen Beach, was not supposed to be greatly impacted by Sandy.  No mandatory evacuation order was issued this area suffered a lot of damage.  By Christmas Day 2018 things looked a lot better.

But, with all disasters, the memories remain, as they will for people who experienced Ida, Ian, and many other storms since Sandy.

Speaking of memories, it's time to pay tribute to the late Jerry Lee Lewis. Lewis died yesterday at the age of 87.  A greatly talented man with several hits in 1956-58, he also entered into a controversial (what an understatement) marriage to a cousin who was only 13 years old at the time.  It collapsed his career for years, but it's also true that he was one of the founding parents of rock n'roll music. 

Lewis was also one of the first inductees into the Rock & Hall of fame, in their first year (1986).  On October 16,  he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. 

I decided to post a couple of videos today to acknowledge the passing of this great musical talent of my youth.  First,  "Great Balls of Fire".

Finally, a live performance from 1964 of  "Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On".

RIP.

The Gamechanger

It's one year since Superstorm Sandy made landfall on the East Coast of New York City.  Tonight, communities on the shore remember with lit candles and flashlights.

As my regular readers may recall, I was born in the Rockaways, in New York City, one of the areas tragically affected. From afar (over 150 miles away away), I tried to use social media to keep track of what my relatives and friends in New York City were experiencing.

This kayak on a Brooklyn street some distance from the ocean (photo taken by a friend) was just the tip of the damage.

A year later, enough damage still remains, although the recovery continues.

We can remember what was, in a visit I made to Red Hook (another affected neighborhood, in Brooklyn) shortly before Sandy .  And, indeed, I've walked the streets of Red Hook again, as I promised to do in that post.

I want to share some photos with you, on this first anniversary of Sandy, of hope reborn in Red Hook.

In some places, when I visited in May, the damage was quite apparent.

But nearby, an open garden center was selling blooms.

A Red Hook housing project has experienced some rough times.

But, just days after the Boston Marathon bombing, Red Hook was raising money for Boston.

Still, so much work remains.  In another Brooklyn neighbor, Gerrisen Beach (in walking distance of one of my relatives), rebuilding continues amidst frustration.

This kind of story, thanks to climate change, has become way too common throughout our world.

At a recent local meeting of our neighborhood and town regarding our own post-flood issues from Tropical Storm Lee in September of 2011, officials called Sandy "the gamechanger".

It was the event that made New York State finally take notice, they said, of all that has been happening with our weather.

I hope our officials are right.

Sustainable Saturday - Red Hook Strong(er) In 2013

Red Hook is a neighborhood in Brooklyn that had seen better days, had seen a period of decline, and was starting on its way back up.   I had visited it a couple of times last year with friends, and found a lot to intrigue me.


Then, along came "Superstorm" Sandy last October, which hit New York City and surrounding areas full on.

If you think Red Hook was brought low by Sandy, fugetaboutit.  As I blogged about last year, neighborhoods can be "sustainable".  There is a lot of heart in this neighborhood and a lot of small businesses.  Those businesses, including one I visited in September, are struggling to recover.

Now, we are six months past Sandy.  What is Red Hook like?  There is a lot of recovery - and a lot of work still needing to be done. 



When you enter Red Hook, this is what you see-pure urban grit.

 

This shows some of the work that still needs to be done.  In a nearby area, I smelled a very familiar smell - flood smell.  It's a smell you don't forget, and I smelled a lot of it in my neighborhood in September of 2011 after Tropical Storm Lee.

A few blocks away, a garden center was open for business.

Beautiful plants for sale in the garden center contrasted with the gritty neighborhood surrounding it.

Nearby gardens I saw in September are gone for now, but progress in restoring them is being made.

I will leave you today with a picture of the Red Hook waterfront.

In the coming weeks in my blog- one Red Hook small business fights back, and a larger one that has been one of the driving forces in the Red Hook revitalization reopens.

Memories

We were there a month before Sandy, and now it is gone.

So many of the scenes were too familiar, 14 months after my neighborhood in Westover, near Johnson City, New York, flooded - except we didn't have the strong winds, or the sea water, or 15 foot waves bearing down on us, like the waterfront neighborhoods of NYC.

It took me a month to search online for the fate of Red Hook.  I already knew it in my heart.

I don't want to show you pictures of the destruction, although the NY Times wrote a heartbreaking article about the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook that won my heart during two visits this year.  And now it's been undone by the same sea that gave it identity.  Can the community be rebuilt?

The residents now face a hard road back. Many residents of my neighborhood of Westover walked this road over a year ago.  Some still do.

New York City is not just midtown Manhattan.  Its people will surprise and amaze you.  I have confidence that Red Hook will return.

Let us remember the Red Hook of September, 2012 and not the Red Hook of late October, 2012.

The best Key Lime pies in the world - will they be able to recover?

Pre Civil War warehouse.

And a view from afar.



The Fairway, in another historic warehouse building, was flooded with over 7 feet of water, and they lost everything.




One more view of Fairway.  My friend with cancer loved this store and loved the key lime pies of Steve's.  Now what, for her?

In spirit, I walk down Van Brunt Street.  In spirit, I visit the Pier 44 gardens (now that I finally know their name) once again, as the winds of late fall blow against me.

In my memories I return to a day in late September when I walked those streets with my friend.

I will do so again, one day.

The Pigeon Commuters

As I blogged about over two years ago, I have never seen the neighborhood of my birth in the Queens borough of New York City.  And now, I never may.


Many of us have seen the "after" pictures of the Rockaways.  The wrecked buildings, the people still without power, the neighborhood that neither the City, the State nor FEMA quite know what to do about.

But, thanks to a MSNBC commentator, I got to see the "before", of families frolicking on the beach, of surfers riding the subway, of pigeons that have learned to ride the A train over Jamaica Bay.  The pigeons commute, the easy way, from the Rockaways to the mainland.

I wanted to share this with you, because this is another New York City the tourist will never know.

And, sadly, perhaps, I will never know it either.
Arverne, on the Rockaway peninsula in Queens, suffered its share of damage from Hurricane Sandy.  And now, it is starting to develop sinkholes.  Part of the neighborhood may end up in a sinkhole.  The other part may mold away.  Sounds pretty grim, doesn't it.


Not exactly. What ever happened to the Arverne by the Sea development I mentioned in my 2010 blog post?

You may not believe it, and this gives a lot of us hope.  Perhaps there is hope for the Rockaways. Arverne, one of the grittier parts of this pennisula, may help show the way.

Destruction or hope?  I don't envy the residents of the Rockaways, but I am glad that I was, in a very small way, part of their neighborhoods once upon a time.

Tomorrow - whatever happened to Red Hook?

Fall Fancies - I Won!

I won NaNoWriMo!

What that means, simply, is that I wrote 50,000 words (almost 50,300 words, to be exact) of what may or may not be part of a novel, in 30 days.  Since this took place in November, I can consider it a Fall Fancy.  Hurray for me!

Right now, I have an Open Office document with 50,300 raw, unedited words.  I have no idea if they are coherent words, or worthwhile words, or even interesting words.  For all I know, the document may never see the light of day.

So, was it worth it?

Yes.  (And many thanks to my long suffering spouse.  I promise I will now clean the house.  On the other hand, maybe I'll just sleep for a week.)

1.  I now have a small idea (a VERY small idea) of just how HARD it is to write.  I will never look at a book in the same way again.

2.  I healed a wound that had dragged me down these past 14 months.  I had felt guilt over being away on vacation when a natural disaster hit my area and left me better off than so many in my neighborhood.  And then I lived through it again when a number of family members lived through the wrath of Hurricane Sandy.  One of my cousins, in fact, just got back into his home this past Saturday.

And here I was, unable to help them.  I could only send them encouragement.

3. My fictional memoir was a liberation.  I brought my Mom, dead since 1965, back to life and got to know her as an adult and as a long-distance caretaker.  I had the daughter I never was able to have.  I interacted with three fictional grandchildren.  (I also had to struggle with whether to kill my Mom off during the course of the story.)

Now I have to decide if I will try to edit this manuscript, or if I should just consider it a one month exercise in self-healing and keep it as a souvenir of recovery.

But, I did win. And now I can sit back and actually read some of the writers forums on the NaNoWriMo site. And bask in the glow of knowing that, whatever else I did in my life, I actually wrote 50,000. words in a month.

Will I do it again? Well, many women know what it is like to give birth.  We lie there on the delivery table and swear we will never do it again.

And then many of us do it again.

Never say never.

Check with me next November.

Best of AM - Fall Fancies- The Calm Before the Storm

Part of "sustainable" living is attempting to live within the rhythms of nature.  This is a trick our local government hasn't learned yet. (This is a post written before Hurricane Sandy - and, sadly, we learned just how right these words were).

With climate change, or whatever you want to call it, we now face record, fierce storms that are larger than anything we experienced when we were younger.

The Saturday Otsiningo Park Farmers Market near Binghamton will go on today as scheduled - Frankenstorm has not moved in yet on us here in upstate NY.  (I will announce some news about the market later in this post.) But before the storm comes a calm, and I want to share the last bit of upstate NY fall with you before the hurricane moves in.

The last of the trees are starting to turn now. This red maple in Binghamton, NY is a contrast to the bare tree it stands next to.  Actually, with the oncoming Hurricane Sandy, it is well that these trees shed their leaves now.

Nearby, a red bush blooms (picture taken earlier this week).  These bushes have been so red this year, they practically glow.

So, with the beauty of fall about ready to end with a fierce storm, it is time to announce that our Regional Farmers Market is going to be a reality by next year.  It is official.

Construction will begin next January, with a building on the edge of the park that used to be a rest area building (the rest stop closed back in the 1990's) being remodeled.  And at long last, we will have a year round farmers market.  Not very big compared to, say, Asheville, North Carolina, but it's a start.  I'm sure the building will have to be expanded and that will happen come spring, when the ground defrosts.

So what is the problem?  Speaking of potential heavy rains and flooding....

Otsiningo Park is situated along the Chenango River and has flooded several times over the years. The area where the building is has not flooded in the 25 plus years I've lived in this area but the park is closed whenever it floods and if the park is closed, you won't be able to get to the market.

There must be a reason why this park is a park and is not part of the residential neighborhood it adjoins.  So maybe local government had a good reason back when not to develop the area.  Maybe today's local government should give that some thought.

If we gave the increasingly likelihood of flooding in our area some thought, we might want to rethink some things, including putting a year round venue inside this park. Or, if they want to go ahead, make sure the design is in harmony with the fact that the park may flood.  And that our climate is changing.

I'll sure be curious to see, come January, what the design will be like.

In the meantime, I will enjoy this calm before the storm.  And, apart from a bit of anxiety over the coming storm - I can't wait to have a year round farmers market.

Why should Asheville have all the fun?

Pouring a Gas of Milk

NaNoWriMo Weekly check in #1.  The total word count as of bedtime last night is 13,728.  A whole lot to go.

I hope most of those sentences are more coherent than my "gas of water" gem.

One of the biggest challenges of the National Novel Writing Month (writing a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November) is keeping your ideas flowing.  It's supposed to be all about turning off your inner editor- you know, the inner editor that all bloggers have.  Write now, edit after November ends.

The second biggest challenge is staying coherent.  Hence the "gas of milk".

I meant to say "glass of milk".  To the NaNoWriMo word count, it doesn't matter. But to me, it does.

My third biggest challenge is shutting up the inner voice that keeps saying "no one is going to care about what you write. Boorrrrrrring! "

After reviewing the NaNoWriMo rules, I decided to turn this novel into a mental health project.  The flood our area survive last year has now been dwafted, big time, by Sandy.  I have friends and family on Long Island, New Jersey, and in NYC.  I'm not even sure all of them have power back. Did I happen to mention that, as I pre-write this post, it is snowing heavily down there? 

But there is something I have to get out of my system.

And so, I am writing the fictional memoir of someone who could be me in an alternate universe. In that universe, my Mom didn't die when I was 12.  She is alive, and 90 years old.  (I have a feeling I am channeling a friend and loyal Ramblin with AM blog reader.  Fear not, friend, she is not your Mom. She is my Mom, if she had lived to 90.).  In that universe, I have the daughter who, in this universe, I never had. (not that I have ever not loved my son.)  In that universe, I am working in a career I changed in "real life" years ago.  In that universe, I am a writer.  Come to think of it, I am one in this universe, too.

I'm working on a book, about something that happened in Binghamton in 1962.

There's one other thing.  In this universe, I was not here when the flood happened, when my neighborhood was evacuated.  My spouse and I were 7 hours away, on vacation.  You can check my blog, posts of September 7-September 11 to see what "really" happened. In this universe, anyway.

About three weeks after the flood, a neighbor offhandedly said to me, "but you weren't here"  I don't think he meant anything by it, but it plunged me into a big bout of Survivors Guilt I've never mentioned in this blog until just now.

I have spent the last 14 months wondering what would have happened if we had been home when the flood came.  And now I know, because I am writing about it.

Fiction with a dash or two of fact. And a project that will put mental demons to rest, at last.  Liberation.  Freedom.

Free at last.

Thank you, NaNoWriMo.

Voting in the Post Sandy World

Today, in the United States, it is election day.  We are electing a President, the House of Representatives, 1/3 of the Senate and also various local officials.

This is your choice today: vote or don't vote.  But for many in the Hurricane Sandy zone, voting is going to be just another burden on top of trying to get to work, trying to find a place with heat, and trying to find gas for your car or generator.

If you vote, you are joining people like my mother in law, who was away from her home for nearly a week due to Hurricane Sandy.  When I spoke to her Saturday, the thing uppermost on her mind was - not when her power would be restored (it was, shortly after I spoke to her) but if she would be able to vote.

I assured her she would, but to call her Board of Elections to find out if her polling place had changed.

People here in states that allow early voting were standing on long lines back in October to exercise their privlege.  People in Hurricane Sandy-affected areas today are going to go to a lot of trouble to vote.  A cousin who had to be out of town today voted by absentee ballot.


Haven't made up your mind yet?  Not an excuse.  My suggestion: don't vote based on one issue.  Examine your future carefully.  You are voting for both a future you can imagine and a future you can't.  A future that now includes the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and if we will learn our lesson.

Vote for the candidates that best express the future you dream of. 

Governors Cuomo and Christie (Democrat and Republican) have joined in a common effort to make voting easier for their citizens.  Quoting from a news report:

" Gov. Andrew Cuomo has agreed to issue an executive order that will allow displaced voters to cast ballots by affidavit at any polling site they can reach Tuesday.
The order will permit voters to sign affidavits that they're legally registered to vote in the presidential and state races and cast ballots at any open polling site, even those outside their neighborhoods.
But they won't be able to vote for state legislative candidates unless the polling place is within the proper legislative district.
New Jersey is allowing voters to use provisional ballots at any polling site"

Decisions on the fly,to cope with the conditions we now face.  That is true leadership.  Look for that quality in your candidate.

So now, if you are in the United States, make your country proud. Get out and vote.  And, a special thanks if you were impacted by Sandy. You are participating in history. Be proud.

It does matter.

The New Normal- Why You Should Vote

Two weeks ago Saturday, I was partying with some of them at a 60th birthday party on the edge of New York City.  Today, they are recovering from a natural disaster, every one of them.

Two weeks ago, the New York/New Jersey metropolitan area could never dream what would happen next. They have collided with the New Normal.

I have other friends/family in New York City, Long Island, New Jersey and Westchester County.  This is what happened, and why it is important to vote. 

I realize this happens to Florida and the Gulf Coast a lot more, but the extent of this storm was massive - the total area it covered was something not seen often in our lifetimes.  The nature of these storms is changing.  Less wind.  Larger area.

A cousin at the party had water in his house, his car is undriveable and possibly totalled, and he still did not have power as of when I heard of them last

Mother in law, didn't have power 5 days ago; she's home now but had to take refuge with first a family member and later a neighbor's daughter.

Husband's cousin-in-law (is there a better name for this relationship?), without power, expected restoration was November 4, let's hope so.  Her daughter, no power, expected restoration, November 9.  CIL's mother has Alzheimers, and can't understand what is going on.  Speaking of being in the sandwich generation...

Cousin in Brooklyn, without power 55 hours, has it back now but heating system isn't working.  Neighborhood 1/2 mile away is totally devastated.   Gas lines are two to three hours long in some neighborhoods as of yesterday.

New Jersey relatives were without power. One moved down to Florida several months ago and was very unhappy.  Turns out she made the right choice as her former home area is in ruins.


Brooklyn relative talks about New York Marathon and how they took generators that residents could use and used them for Marathon tents. He posted on Facebook explaining  how Midtown Manhattan got their cell phone service restored and the rest of the five boroughs got ignored.  A high school friend who is a runner got involved in the relief effort, and a "helping" marathon was held yesterday.

We saw the best and the worst of people, through the fingers of friends communicating on social media.  Facebook was essential.  Twitter was helpful.  Smart phones, when charging was available, useful.  iPads were better, for some reason.

So, dear reader, what have we learned, as a hurricane hit an area of the country that one would not normally hit?

We've learned that this isn't the first time New York City has been brought to its (figurative) knees by weather.  There was this little storm called The Blizzard of 1888. 

Partially because of the Blizzard, itself a superstorm, the subways were built, and powerlines in Manhattan were put under ground.  The system worked - until Monday.  Times have changed.

Now we have to rethink our cities near the coast.  Sandy showed us just how vulnerable we are.  Our lifelines of gasoline and cell phones were cut.  Storms aren't storms any more, they are super storms.  Perhaps weaker winds, but the storms now cover huge areas.  Imagine - this storm affected the weather in Chicago while it was tearing up New Jersey!

We must adapt or die. Maybe NOW we will no longer think our lives are "business as usual". Too many people have had their lives disrupted for too long.  Will we finally wake up and realize we must adapt to what is going on around us?  That we have to spend the money to rebuild and improve our infrastructure to cope with the changes in the weather?

We have mixed politics and meteorology too many times recently.  This must stop.  Hoping the affected people can get to a voting booth and express what they feel.

If we don't face the facts, our lifestyles won't be sustainable for very much longer.

My thoughts continue to go out to all those affected by Sandy.

And, the final lesson of the past week?  VOTE TOMORROW.  Even if you think it won't matter.  Even if you think your candidate will lose.  Haven't been paying attention? Pick up today's newspaper, if you can. You can read newspapers without power (at least during daytime hours.)

Exercise your right to vote tomorrow.  Or shut up for the next four years.

Who Cares About an Elderly Woman with a Heart Condition?

NYSEG, doesn't, that's who.  And all those who have elderly parents in the Sandy Zone, or relatives with autism, should take note.

NYSEG is the electric utility that services counties directly to the north of New York City, especially northern Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess.  All of these counties were impacted by Hurricane Sandy.   Power outages are common with storms in this area, with NYSEG known to drag its feet.  Their response time to disasters is legendarily slow.  My mother in law lives in this area.  She has a 50-something son with autism.  I would not be able to calculate how much money my mother has saved the taxpayer with her efforts on behalf of her son.  MIL is an old time woman, sometimes stubborn to a fault, who believes in self-reliance.  She's a two time breast cancer survivor and suffered a stroke several years ago. She also has a problem with her heart.  To maintain her privacy, I will not elaborate further.

MIL, who was staying with family outside of NYSEG's service area (ironically, closer to the storm), knew her power had been out since Monday.  She heard on the news that NYSEG was giving priority in restoration to people with heart conditions.  She called"somebody".  To be fair I am not sure she called NYSEG, as I received this story third hand.

She was told, dear readers, to call the Red Cross.  Not NYSEG's problem, apparently,  No offer to give her street, which is usually one of the last to have power restored, any priority.

A shelter is not an option for her, because of her son with autism.  A shelter would be total sensory overload for him.  I don't know how he would react, but other adults with his conditions have been known to tantrum, which can be perceived by shelter workers unfamiliar with developmental disabilities as violent, dangerous behavior.  So, she will continue to seek shelter with friends/relatives who have had power restored. In a way, she is now homeless.  That is no way to treat an elderly woman. (If you are curious, she was offered shelter up here, 150 miles away, and turned it down.  But it is always an option.  So is a fully automatic generator, but she is a widow on Social Security, and we aren't floating in money, either.)

NYSEG's lack of service is not just my opinion. It is NY Governor Cuomo's opinion, too.  Quoting from a newspaper article provided by AP, "Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday threatened utility companies' rights to operate in the state if they don't immediately put power restoration work into highest gear."  He noted that Con Ed (NYC's utility) is hard at work.  Where was NYSEG?

The government in NY State holds utilities to certain standards of service.  At least they have to TRY.  Apparently, NYSEG was fast asleep - again.

I will get political for a moment.  Sometimes, you NEED government.  Sometimes situations are just too much for local governments to handle.  There are reasons why we as people have chosen the state form of government.  When it works for us, it works.  Curious, after this statement, some power started to be restored in the counties I've mentioned. 

Just coincidence, I'm sure.

My mother in law's neighborhood? They were assessed for power back on today at 11pm. Then it was changed to tomorrow at noon.  Now it is 11 pm tomorrow.  Do I hear Monday? Do I hear Tuesday?

(UPDATE 11-3 at 2:15pm. Estimate of power turnon in my MIL's neighborhood is now November 6-I must have jinxed her. )And, I confirmed she did talk to someone at NYSEG. She called a complaint number,was switched twice, and doesn't know who she talked to.  I am going to follow up.

Shame, Shame, Shame, NYSEG.