So the hurricane barely hit me. My work place was hard hit. You all probably heard about the NYU Medical Center evacuations and how it affected patients. Well only on Huffington Post and Salon did I see coverage of the impact on research. Years worth of work have been lost by many labs because of the loss of backup power supplying -80 degree freezers that held precious stocks. Many labs I know have lost so much. We were lucky. The institute I work at within the Medical center was on separate back up generators and they held. So even my research survived and is merely interrupted since I can't make it in to work.
At home we never lost power, never were flooded and about all that happened were some trees down. So it is almost a holiday feel to my neighborhood because people are home with nothing much to do and stores are opening. So people are enjoying themselves and patronizing local businesses.
The situation was much worse where my former co-worker lives in the Rockaways. Their neighborhood lost lives, lost homes, and even homes that are still habitable are flooded.
So today, rather than spend another day working from home watching NY1, I took the long bus ride to the Rockaways to help out.
The part of the Rockaways where my friends live is a real old school Irish New York neighborhood. Pretty Republican. Lots of firefighters and police. They have been hard hit recently. They lost many on 9/11. They had a plane break up over their neighborhood and were hit by debris soon after 9/11. They have been increasingly hit by big storms.
Climate change is not a popular topic in the Rockaways and yet they are really on the front line of the effects of climate change. The water table is rising so that even with storms weaker than Sandy they get flooded. Storm surges are higher. And we almost certainly will get more storms like Irene and Sandy.
Bloomberg, who I do not like for many, many reasons, did the right thing by citing climate change and science directly as a reason to endorse Obama. He beat Cuomo there who ducked a climate change issue. Senator Schumer, however, did not and came right out and said, in effect, we better change how we are thinking about our impact on climate in light of more and more extreme events.
This morning I was settling down with my morning coffee watching NY1. I had emailed my friend the day after Sandy but she was only able to respond today. Her home was hit but at least was still standing...flooded completely in the basement and the flood waters came part way up their first floor. She invited me to come help them clean up.
So rather than sit on my ass for another day just waiting for my work and schools to reopen, I figured out the buses I needed to take and I set out to see what I could do.
My bus ride through Brooklyn was reasonably normal. Even at the best of times the buses are slow, crowded and irritating. The B41 was running very frequently this morning...often three buses in a row showing up. But the Q35, the bush I needed to reach the Rockaways, was running very infrequently. But it did eventually come. The most unusual part of my ride through Brooklyn was one gas station, a private one, along Flatbush that was surrounded by police cars and vans. I couldn't figure out from the bus what was going on...but something big. All gas stations had some police presence nearby but nothing like this particular one.
The ride remained normal until we crossed the bridge and reached the Rockaways in Queens. There the damage was immediately clear at Riis beach where my son spent many a day over the summer with his day camp. Damage was very clear there.
Then as we turned down the main streets the bus, emergency vehicles and private cars were somewhat competing over space along sand-filled streets and downed trees. But give the city credit...I was able to take the bus right to my friend's door. She has been staying at a relative's house and was driving in, so I actually beat her there. That gave me a chance to talk to neighbors and walk around.
First off not many people needed help yet. All they were doing was trying to get pumps to clear out their basements...and even that was a Sisyphean effort because every time the tide comes in, the water table rises again, and basements flood again. So until the ground starts drying out they can't even begin to deal with their basements. Downed power lines are all over the place. Power is still out but it was nerve wracking realizing how easy it would be to not notice a downed line until you were about to step on it. The boardwalk at the beach is completely destroyed.
Most houses are flooded, and most damaged. Not too many looked severely damaged, though that is hard to tell by eye. I did notice one area later in the day that had been inspected and marked with yellow tags (red means uninhabitable, green habitable, yellow mixed). Some places were collapsed. One area (not the Breezy Point scenes people are seeing on TV...part of Belle Harbor) was burned out centered around a local pub.
In general people were talking, helping eachother, even laughing. Coping, basically. Many felt powerless because they couldn't really do anything. Not even obsessively watch news like I have been doing. Just talk to neighbors, assess damage, and wait.
My friends arrived about half an hour after I got there by bus. We went to work clearing large debris from their yard and emptying out their garage. Most of what was in their garage was soaked, muddy and damaged. It is amazing how little of all that decades of junk you want to keep once it has been flooded with sewage infused sea water. We salvaged some stuff, but most we put out as garbage. No one was all that sentimental at the moment. It was a task to be accomplished and hard work. An old took cabinet from my friend's grandfather's days was thrown out. So were some tables that had been kept for restoration. Old books that had been marked for donation were waterlogged and now garbage.
In some ways the worst my friend may have lost were some of her tropical fish. But that wasn't something that could be dealt with at the moment. Thankfully temperatures are not so high so the smell of death in the area is minimal despite the deaths (people and pets) that have happened. This is one of several ways Katrina was worse: a much higher flood, many bodies and hot temperatures. I can't even imagine what it was like. I do remember the smell after 9/11 both near the WTC site and near my work place (which was next to the morgue where bodies were taken after 9/11). Usually I just smelled a hint of decay...in Katrina the smell would have been unmitigated.
Once the garage was cleared we kind of ran out of momentum. Pumping neighboring basements was started, but again it was something of a futile effort until things dry out more. So we took a break for lunch. By which time it was starting to get cold and I started figuring it might be time to start the long bus ride home. I know people are saying bus service that is normally 24 hours has been ending in the evening. I didn't want to risk it. So I bid good bye and took the bus home. It was tougher than getting there. Very crowded, long waits and one bus stopped running before my destination. Since there was a long wait for the next bus, I figured I'd just walk. I was tempted to cut through Prospect Park despite it still being closed because I had noticed people entering the park in my neighborhood earlier. But now they seemed to be keeping people out for real (for good reason, mind you, given how many trees fell after Irene).
Made it home, peeled off my muddy clothes and took a nice shower. Of course those still stuck without power can't really do that. Also took some ibuprofen because I can feel my old muscles stiffen.
More than ever I am pissed off that global warming has been talked about by scientists for more than 20 years, with clear warnings of increased extreme weather and higher sea levels and storm surges. We have been warned for more than 20 years and Republican obstructionism has prevented ANY action whatsoever. For once I agree with mayor Bloomberg. Now is the time to slam the Republicans for ignoring the biggest issue of our generation...putting a large part of America at risk. In honor of New York and New Jersey and everywhere else hit by Sandy, let's fucking win this one. Donate to win big next week.