Whaddya gonna do.
I remember begging family friends to evacuate from their apt in Brighton Beach even before the emergency announcements… they were eventually rescued from their 1st floor neighbors’ where they decamped when the furniture started floating. (Why, why, why.)
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That was also true.
I was in a subway station (thankfully just off a train) when it happened; I was coming back from the dentist. So I was spared having to walk down 33 flights from my office to the street.
I did have “nice” shoes on, which made my walk from 42nd to the Village, where I had plans with friends that evening, very painful. I think I had seven dollars in cash, and the ATMs weren’t working, so I didn’t want to spend any of it on the flip flops that were being sold to cringing, limping office workers like myself all along the street.
Once at my friend’s place, we raided her cupboards and fridge to discover she had a bag of wasabi peas and warm beer to drink. Since we all decided to spend the night there vs trying to get home to Brooklyn (no subway), I think we scored a free pizza and more liquor , then spent a dreadful, sweltering night trying to sleep. It did transition from “festive” to “a tiny bit threatening” outside after dark. Everyone was drunk and the darkness was emboldening.
I hitched home to Brooklyn the next day with a cardboard sign, and my power was soon restored.
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thank you !!
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aww thanks!
My building pooled our resources, so we all did okay - formed human chains to get water to the higher floors, opened our homes so that the staff (who couldn’t get home) could shower and nap. And I “only” lived on the ninth floor, so the climb wasn’t even that bad.
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That’s no good. Take care of yourself.
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I have a real dread of floods. Here we see the East River advancing across the FDR toward my building, as I watched in consternation.
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I remember sitting in my apartment in Queens, waiting out Sandy and hoping we wouldn’t lose power. We didn’t, but my company’s office was in SoHo so it was closed that whole week. My parents in NJ were out of power for 10 days, and had to take in my uncle because his assisted living facility was also without power.
My chorus was supposed to sing an opera-in-concert at Jazz at Lincoln Center the night Sandy hit. Because the soloists were stranded in the city, they held the performance 2 days later. Those of us who had cars formed a carpool to get choristers to the performance. I think the house was maybe 25% full.
My wife had a conference in New Orleans that week and she was able to get there thanks to the heroic efforts of LaGuardia Airport workers. I joined her and had the surreal experience of hotel workers in NOLA commiserating us. And as we were flying back, we went up the NJ coast and I saw the Seaside Heights roller coaster in the ocean.
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Cool! We may have had this conversation before. I lived in Astoria for 12+ years; before that, Park Slope and various places on the UWS. I was born in Brooklyn (Midwood).
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We may have had this conversation before.
I think so! 
I was born in Brooklyn too . Mom was working at Downstate at the time, and I did a rotation there about 22 years later. I grew up in what my daughter, having lived in Astoria, calls “deep Queens.
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Hah! I was born at Downstate.
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Same same!
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that must’ve been a surreal sight.
It really was. Seeing a roller coaster in the ocean was weird enough, but I used to go to the Seaside Heights boardwalk growing up.
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Tornado watch here.
We just got one too.
Where are you?
