Storm Stories

Hurricane Sandy turned out to be a very unexpected, destructive storm. Luckily i wasn’t effected by it because i was living far away from the water, unlike many people who happened to live very close to the water. I consider myself and my family lucky because we were at the right place at the right time because we were all inside our apartment building and we didn’t have any power outages nor tree damage destruction. I lived in ‘area c’, where the area wasn’t threatened by the waters.  I thought, since last years hurricane Irene wasn’t a big threat, people shouldn’t worry about this hurricane either. But, it turned out to be a very horrific storm and a storm to remember. Many people were threatened by this hurricane and as a result mayor Bloomberg announced a mandatory evacuation. Some people listened, and some didn’t. Those who listened, made lives easier for the first res ponders  And those people who didn’t take it seriously, put their lives on the line as well as the first res ponders. We were all lucky for Sandy to be a category one. This was a wake up call. We all have to listen to announcements god for bid if there are other hurricanes. We have to take it seriously.

Redon Rexha

On the Sunday that Sandy was suppose to get here I was in school working on a project. At around 5PM my sister calls that they are supposedly closing down all bridges at 7PM. I take the train to school so that was not the problem. I had to drive my mother to the Bronx. So i rush home and wait for her in the car. We stopped at a gas station to fill up but they were not selling gas (Didint want to sell or ran out of gas. I dont know) so we go to another. Then I make it to my mothers job in like about twenty minutes. It was around 6:10 PM when i dropped her off so i had time to make it past the bridge so i thought. The lines for the Eazy-Pass on the Whitestone are always longer then the ones to pay for cash. Since i knew this, and thinking that the bridges were going to close at 7, and not wanting to be stranded in the Bronx I got on the right hand side on the emergency lane and drove past the traffic. After I paid the toll I drove home. I parked my car in an area away from trees.

As the storm was going on i didnt really feel anything. Just sounded like alot of wind. When it was over I went out and only a few trees fell, some knocked over park fences but thats about it.

This was the worst experience I ever been through as a New Yorker, I was stuck home for the whole week. Sandy lasted from about sunday night to monday morning. Monday afternoon I walked outside around my neighborhood almost every block had a tree that fell, so much people had no power. We lost power on Sunday around 3pm, It did not come on until Tuesday around 4pm. With no power, cell phone, or laptop, I never felt so isolated from everything it was like I had nothing to do, and time was moving slow. It was terrible to see how many people were affected diferently, some affected worst than what I experience, hopefully this can perpare us if another storm ever hits.

I live in Bayside, Queens. On Monday, there was a lot of rain, wind, and branches falling around my house. I live in a two family house, and pretty much every house in my neighborhood had damage.  That night, my neighbors gutter was half off his roof, and it kept crashing into the house every few seconds because of the wind. My car and my mom’s car were both in the driveway, and the shingles from my house, fell into my driveway and narrowly missed both of our cars. Pretty much all that night, the lights were flickering on and off but fortunately, we didn’t loose any power.  Tuesday afternoon, my mom and I drove around to look at what happened around my neighborhood. There were down trees and electrical wires everywhere, and it was pretty much impossible to get around it all.  The lirr wasn’t operating for a few days, so there was no way to get around if I wanted to get to the city, and most of the other trains didn’t work for a while.

On Sunday morning we started to get ready for the hurricane. I was very scared because mother nature is something that is unexpected. As the day went by we watch the news to see any update  about the hurricane.   Around  8:00 pm on Monday, there was  heavy winds. There was  couple of branches that were in the streets and on top of the cars. There was no flooding because my building is on top of a hill.

Me and my family had just retrained to New York on the morning of the storm  At that time it was only raining. We were really unprepared for the storm because we had just came back from a family trip. As the storm hit i was scared that we would lose power, but nothing happened. In fact while the storm was happening i was on Face-time  Nothing exciting happened in my area. Yet it was still a bad experience because I was stuck at home bored. The trains weren’t working, and the cars were out of gas, so i had no way to hangout with my friends. I felt sick being stuck in my house for a week, but i cant lie i did enjoy not having to come to school for a week.

– Mehran Sadiq

Around my house there is a lot of trees big bulky trees but after this storm almost all toppled down and took the entire sidewalk. On the side of my house when you look outside the window the cables run down above the street and as the winds were picking up trees were falling over and a few branches snapped off and hung on the cables. The cables started sparking blue lights and there was a fire from the cables.

Winds were blowing heavily as the storm approach Sunday night-Monday. People rushed out uf work into the last trains that will run in order to get home safe. NYC looked as if it was getting ready for war “WITH MOTHER NATURE”. AS the storm approached news casters, weather media informed us in different parts how bad the winds were getting advising us to stay indoors.  Charging everything my phone laptop ect.. with a packed bag on the side of my bed with necessary clothing just in case me and my family had to evacuate. As i tried to sleep i would here the loud crashing of tress falling, car alarms going off, Firetruck siren going crazy. My dog stood by the window whimpering loudly as i kept telling him to shut uppppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But luckily nothing drastic happened to us we stayed with light just a bunch of tress and debris everywhere. As we watched the news we saw the horrible stuff that has happened in lower Manhattan and jersey it was heart breaking.