A love Hate letter
I have a
feeling that I’m not the only person to tell you this Sandy, but you are a narcissistic,
plan ruining a-hole. We were all just minding our own business, enjoying a
little bit of wind and then you went and got carried away with yourself. I mean
really, what has the east coast, specifically New Jersey, done to you lately. We
bring everyone the best of the best – Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, the shore,
pizza, taylor ham and cheese, REAL bagels, diners, tons of animal print clothing,
awesome accents and the fist pump. It seems to me that someone took the
cancelling of the Jersey Shore too literally. I am a proud resident of Hoboken,
New Jersey and you really screwed with us Sandy. Although I thankfully wasn't nearly as devastated as so many were, I was very much inconvenienced. Because I
share a little bit of your narcissism, let me tell you how you ruined my day
week.
Proof Point 1: Loss of Power aka back to
the dark ages
Although quality
time with roommates is always appreciated, it is much more enjoyable when you
have POWER! You couldn't just go ahead and put us out of our misery and cut off
the power in one painless swoop, but instead, you had to tease us. As we had
been watching updates all evening, waiting to hear something about what was
predicted for Hoboken; a reporter stationed in Hoboken finally comes on. But just
as we were watching, at approximately 9:15pm on Monday evening, you flicked
off. We thought the end had finally come; the anticipation was killing us of
what might happen. But, so sweetly,
it came back on just 2 minutes later. We thought we were home free; the worst
had finally come and gone. But no Sandy, you had other things in store for us
and just 5 minutes later you went out again…and this time, for good.
You continued
to stay off for 6 whole days (and we were the lucky ones)! At first it was fun,
ok not fun, but an adventure. You had wreaked havoc on our small town of
Hoboken, see proof point 2¸and forced
us to find old school ways of entertaining ourselves. Although the exploring
was fun at first it quickly got old. Our trusty iPhone’s had no more battery
and would barely get a signal (because you also very rudely screwed with the
cell towers) AND we began to get very tired of the 2 large pizza pies we had purchased
on Sunday as we “prepared” to ride out the storm. On top of that, they make
large flat screen TV’s for a reason. And that reason is so that you don’t have
to huddle around a yellow sports radio in order to find out what is going on in
the rest of the world!
Sandy, you
forced me to stoop to new levels. As we scavenged around our destroyed town, we
did what any child of the 21st century would do. I searched and
searched for a small miracle, a power outlet. Because as any one who was born
in the 80’s knows, no matter how bad things get, you ALWAYS have to find a way
to charge your phone.
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One street in town had power right after the storm. This nice guy let power cords out his garage for
people to charge their phones! We spent almost 2 hours waiting for a full charge! |
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| After finding a cord out of a garage, we walked home and found this huge charging station at the corner of our street. Verizon brought in charging trucks for people to use! Such first world problems! |
Proof Point 2: Water. Apparently I didn't get the memo that a row boat was required to
live in Hoboken.
Hoboken is
known for not having the best drainage system. Sometimes, when it rains
lightly, parts of the town get a tad bit of flooding. Sometimes an intersection
will fill with water, or you have to get through a rather large puddle to get where
you need to be going, but it tends to be pretty manageable. Thankfully for us,
our apartment is right on the outskirts of this bad drainage and we usually
remain unaffected. We were feeling pretty confident about the storm, and
figured worst case, we may lose
power. But no, Sandy you had other plans for us. After you rudely cut off our
power for good, you then decided that we hadn't had enough fun for one evening.
As we began to get restless, we decided to look out the window onto the street
to see what it looked like all dark. Oh Sandy, did you have a surprise for us!
What we found was a lot of commotion, car alarms going off and oh right, about
3 ½ feet of water down our ENTIRE street!!! People were outside wadding through
the water, almost waist deep trying to save their cars. One couple decided that
their expensive SUV was better than your powers. But Sandy, you sure proved
them wrong. As they naively tried to drive their SUV down the street – where they
were going I have no idea – you made sure they didn't make it far! They got
stuck in the middle of the street, where there car promptly stayed for quite a
few days.
These are pictures from AFTER the water went down a bit!
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| The dumb SUV I mentioned above. PS - I don't think that Jeep is for sale anymore! |
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| Intersection of my street |
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| Garage under an apartment building |
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| A neighbors garage |
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| A shop a few doors down |
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| Intersection down the street |
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| Intersection I take to get to my best friends house. And this was 3 days later! |
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| Down the street 3 days later |
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| You could say there was a little bit of sewage in the streets. |
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| Grocery store that was condemned. No idea when it will be functional! |
After a few
days, the water subsided, but what was left was much worse. Although you did a
number on the contents of our garage, it was nothing compared to the loss that
so many people experienced. Those that lived in a street level or basement
apartment lost everything. As you filled their homes you took away years of
memories, possessions and hard work. You
left my neighbors with nothing and forced them to start over. You shut down
family run businesses, ruined cars and you ruined lives. Thankfully, after
being ignored by the news outlets, our Mayor put out a rather pathetic
desperate cry for help. Before long the National Guard was in town, helping
people get out of their homes and FEMA arrived to help them begin to rebuild
their lives. Neighbors helped neighbors
by donating items and helping them clean. We’re finally beginning to get back
to normal as rebuilding has begun and streets are cleaned up. But Sandy, you
sure didn't make it easy!
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| Contents of our garage |
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| Neighbors house... |
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| Across the street |
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| Across the street again |
Proof Point 3: Guess I’m moving back in
with my parents…again.
If the power
and water weren't bad enough, you made it so it was nearly impossible to leave
Hoboken. We became our own little island and there was no way on or off. Like a
little girl I called home begging my mommy to come get me. But nooooo. Without
a Hoboken ID you weren't allowed into the city. Getting out was almost as tough
as it was almost impossible to maneuver through the streets because of all the
flooding. After three days stranded at our apartment we FINALLY made it out. My
roommate Christa, her fiancé and I escaped to mommy and daddy’s house. My parents
of course were very gracious hosts. They fed us, kept us warm, gave us tons of
wine and good company. But no matter what, we were constantly distracted by
what was going on at home. We wanted to know how our town was doing, how bad
the damage really was, and how long it would be before we could return back to
our apartment. It almost became surreal watching TV. The Today Show, Anderson
Cooper Live and all the news stations were broadcasting from Hoboken. They gave
us a glimpse of what was going on. And all that did was make us even more
nervous. Thankfully Sandy, you decided to let up by Saturday and gave us power
back. So, we thanked my parents, loaded up on food and supplies to donate and
made the trek back to home sweet Hoboken.
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| My mom entertaining us with a good ole game of Mexican Train Domino's! |
Proof Point 4: Work, who wants to go to
work?
Because everything
else wasn't nearly enough, you decided that it would be tons of fun to make it
almost impossible to get out of Hoboken. Most of the town may have begun to get
power back, but that didn't mean you were going to make it easy to go anywhere!
You flooded our Path station and completely destroyed it. You also flooded a
good portion of our buses and destroyed a whole parking lot of cabs. Buses from
around the country had to be brought in to accommodate the commuters. You made
it so the only way to get into the city was via ferry (which is sooooo
expensive and not convenient) or bus. The only problem with the bus is that 90%
of the town was commuting on it. You know what this means Sandy? This means
that the first week after the storm it took almost 2 hours each way to get to
work! Thankfully I have an amazing boss who allowed me to work from home that
first week. But even with that you still didn't make it easy. It has been two
months of commuting hell. Two months of long lines, tons of traffic and a pain
in the ass commute. But Sandy, we've finally beat you. As of yesterday, the
path is up and running and before long, you’ll be a thing of the past!
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| The flooded Hoboken Path Station |
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| Yea I'd say the Path got a good amount of water |
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| Small glimpse of what the lines looked like. This is nothing! |
You may have
slowed us down for a bit, but you never stopped us. I know how much you enjoy
hearing about yourself, and consuming people’s lives. But this coast is coming
back from the ashes, and it’s coming back with a vengeance. Because one thing
you can’t do Sandy, is ruin our spirits. Don’t mess with Jersey, we’ll come
back harder and better than ever because we are JERSEY STRONG! Next time we’ll
be ready…so don’t say you weren't warned.
Love,
Samantha
