One year ago Hurricane Sandy (<— my first post) ripped through New Jersey ruining and wrecking a lot of peoples homes, businesses and lives. Included in the mess was our apartment, which was flooded with 4 feet of water. At the time, we lived in a studio on ground level and we were in an area that was hit pretty badly.
These are just a few pictures from our apartment during our clean-up. Adam and I cleaned the entire apartment ourselves (carrying a wet mattress is serious work!) and it took us almost 6 hours. Did i mention it was cold? No heat, no electricity.. Just us swishing around in our snow pants and snow boots. The smell was horrid. Think gasoline + sewage + a dirty Hudson river… Really foul.
At the time, I was angry… But, in retrospect, we got lucky…
We didn’t own this apartment so we only had to replace our belongings. Some people lost homes they built (or owned) PLUS everything inside.
We were safe… Some people lost their lives. The story of the woman who lost her 2 children still hurts my heart.
We had family nearby that welcomed us into their warm home… Some had to scrape up their money to stay in a hotel.
Others who were renting had landlords who were waiting for insurance money (which took about 8 months!)… Our landlord started demoing the next day.
In times like these, you also see that there is still good in the world. Restaurants offered free food, residents set up power charging stations outside of their house and people from near and far donated items that others needed.
We’ve learned a lot from this disaster, but I would say the most important thing is… Don’t take anything in your life for granted. When you can’t use your cell phone, computer, lie on your couch, turn on your lights, take a hot shower, have heat in your home and make dinner in your kitchen you notice every small thing you take for granted. We are lucky that all we had was a destroyed apartment. It could have been much worse.
Click here to see “Then and Now” pictures courtesy of Steve Gebhardt from the Roosevelts. It’s amazing to see how far we have come!
