Okay, so I apologize for how long this blog entry is. Feel free to skip and skim if you aren't big on reading! (But I hope you are!)
Day One
Day One was Monday, October 29th. The sky was cloudy, gray, and rainy all day. The wind was beginning to pick up throughout the day. I spent the entire day with my close friend, Nadine* We watched movies, ate popcorn and drank hot chocolate, and made perfume and scented slime. (Yes, we really WERE bored.) Towards 3-4 pm, some of my friends had texted me and said they'd lost power. I ate dinner, and the wind starting picking up, but nothing had really happened yet. At around 6:30PM, the power went out.
The wind was loud and scary. Nadine had come back over to my house, and so did my neighbor Emily*. I remember standing on my front porch, and all you heard was the roaring wind and police/firefighter sirens. You felt the rain whipping your face and the leaves were flying everywhere. The scariest part was looking at the black sky. The entire block was pitch black, but every few seconds, the sky would light up blue. Another transformer exploded and popped and sparked. It was the absolute scariest thing ever.
So Emily, Nadine, my family and I all texted everyone to see if they were okay, and we spent the night playing charades (quite terribly, to be honest) by candlelight.
Day 2
The next morning, the actual storm had passed. We woke up with no power, but my dad and brother had driven over to my aunt's house and picked up a generator. We hooked it up to the fridge and the Playstation in the basement (*sigh.* Not my decision. I would've preferred hooking up WiFi.). We all went outside to check on neighbors. There had been no major damage, but still no power. Our neighbors put their food in our fridge, since ours was the only one with power.
I spent the day in complete boredom. I wrote, read, and drove down to one of the harder-hit areas nearby and saw the damage. It was terrible...household items soggy and cluttered at the curb...people's entire lives were just laying there, destroyed.
I came back home and basically passed time talking to Nadine. We had no phone service. We could only get phone service if we walked all the way down the block...but that didn't work very well, either. We had no way to make sure that anyone was okay, and no gas stations had gas. However, that night at 6:30PM, our power came back! We were one of the only few blocks that had that privilage.
Throughout That Week
Halloween was the next day. Despite no power, cold temperatures, downed trees and power lines, I dressed up as the Phantom of the Opera, rounded up all of my friends, and went out to go get my candy! I spent the night with my friend Bridgit's* house, and since she had power, we all had a great time. :)
Throughout the rest of the week, gas was a problem. There are STILL lines, but they were even worse. People were starting to clean up the devastation, until...
Day 8
Day 8 of post-Hurricane Sandy is today. It was cloudy and cold this morning, and our middle school lost power during the day, and then got it back. Our high school's lights kept flickering, but we have a darned generator, so we didn't get lucky with a blackout and have to leave school early.
But as I started walking to the bus, it started sleeting! As of right now, it's super windy and we already have a few inches of snow. Seriously, can't the East Coast catch a break? The storm hit a week ago, and now we have this nor'easter.
I'll keep you updated!!
xoxo,
Jessica
The Pastry Queen
Quote of the Day:
"New Yorkers can be nasty, arrogant people on any given day...but when hit with disaster, you wouldn't want the help of anybody else." -A.C.
*Names changed for privacy reasoning.
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