Monday – October 29, 2012
It was still calm in the morning, but everything was shut down. Hurricane Sandy was moving up the eastern coast and it was predicted to hit our area by the early afternoon. All the schools were closed. Mass transit had been shut down at 7:00 PM last night. There were no subways, commuter trains, or buses running. The streets were bare and everyone was hunkered down waiting for the huge 800 mile wide hurricane to pass over. Light rain started to fall about mid-day. Then the wind picked up. The wind whistled a variety of tunes most of the time with increasing growling gusts. It was a virtual orchestra of sounds outside for quite a long time.
By early evening, our lights began to flicker. I saw a large ball of flaming light through the trees on the main road. The lights flickered again and I heard an eerie crack and the power was off. I had already gathered candles and flashlights on the kitchen table, so I wasn’t worried. I had always lived in places where the power was flakey so I had an abundant supply of candles. We weren’t worried. The stove burns propane and still worked. The hot water heater also works without electricity. We ate a simple dinner by candle light. We thought, “Hey this hurricane’s not so bad. Hurry up and go away!”
Hurricane Sandy was a large slow-moving swirling mass of wind. It had taken her quite a while at 13 mph to travel north up the Atlantic coast. She made landfall near Cape May, New Jersey and gained speed as she continued westward. The wind and rain of the storm were still not severe.
Ultimately, we learned later, it was the tidal flow and storm surge of the ocean that caused the most devastating damage to the most people. Sandy happened to arrive at the same time as the natural occurrence of a full moon. Every old salt knows that the tides are their highest levels during full moons especially in the spring and fall. My brother and sister-in-law live in a flood zone near Long Island Sound which usually has six-foot tides. Sandy’s surge was predicted to increase the tidal flow to 11 feet about normal. I called Bob and Joan to see how they were doing.
The police had already been to their door to ask them to evacuate. They had refused. A man from the power company, Con Edison, had already turned off their gas. The next high tide was expected at about 12:00 midnight. They were hunkered down and waiting for the storm to pass.