just a city girl

My friends and family have all been calling, actually they’ve all been calling my mother, who is expected to contact me and report back to them. Since I can’t STAND to talk to some members of my family (who shall remain unnamed) that is fine with me.

If you have been following my other blogs, you know I have am still alive. I actually came through the storm relatively unscathed. I didn’t lose power, wifi, or water. It shows you the extent of the damage that there are areas of Manhattan that still don’t have power and the subways are not fully functional. Even my office has been closed all week. I have a sneaking suspicion there was flooding or some other damage to the building.

In case you didn’t know, the city is divided into Zones. The only Zone that was evacuated was Zone A, I am in Zone C, however, if I lived across the street I would be in Zone B. Think on that. Two blocks from apartment is the East River, and right next to that is the FDR.

The subways were shut down at 7:00 pm on Sunday and 9:00 pm the buses were shut down. This didn’t stop me from going out to watch game 4 of the World Series. One woman asked for food, but the kitchen had been closed at 6:00 to let the staff get home. I didn’t ask the bartender how he was getting home. But anyway, on Monday the storm really started to hit. My experience was chronicled more or less by text messages to and from me. The first one was to me:

“Hi there!!! How are you? I got a new phone.”

Me: “Nice I’m drinking coffee and eating berry burst Oreas.”

Him: “good! Stay in your building. Nothing is safe.”

Me: “What if I run out of pizza?” (This was a joke, I don’t keep pizza in my apartment. I avoid having things in my apartment that I am allergic to, the exceptions are rye bread and stuff my friend buys when she visits.)

Him: “Then stay home and survive rather than go out and get killed in the storm.” (The storm wasn’t really that bad, but he’s protective.)

By this time parts of the city had lost power, mainly from ConEd shutting down some stations to avoid problems from flooding. Unfortunately, there was flooding and they did have problems, which is why people are still without power today. There was also flooding at various MetroNorth stations.

I did go out after this series of text messages, but I almost got blown over by the wind. I was coming down one street and I saw a man run across the sidewalk, behind him was a tree branch, it looked like the branch was chasing him, I turned and another man was hanging onto a tree, I turned back and walked down a more protected street. I got home about 3:30 PM, and decided not go back out, besides being windswept I was wet and cold.

Me: “Wind is scary loud now. Going to put a blanket over my head.”

Him: “I’m sorry, I’m sure it won’t be too bad”

Me: “There is no one outside. That has never happened.” This is the truth, every time I have ever looked out my window, even when it’s been pouring, people have been walking around. I looked at my window right before I sent that text and didn’t see anyone.

Later:

Me: “I take it back. There are people outside”
Me: “I hear them screaming”

Him: “Stupid people. Hahahahaha”

Me: “I’m not going out to save them. Fools r on their own.” Seriously what could I do for anyone? The wind was blowing be down hours earlier and it was worse now.

The reason for the blanket was I got an alert from NotifyNYC to go indoors and stay away from windows. Since I live in a studio apartment, I don’t have another room where I can go to get away from the windows, except the bathroom. So I put my laptop under a pillow and took my phone, iPod and flash drives with me to the far end of the apartment, where I sat on the floor with a blanket over my head. Sometime around 7:30 pm I heard talking outside my apartment. Not the screaming like I heard before, so I went to the window (still with the blanket over my head) and peeked out.

Me: “Omg nick! There are police & fd in front of my bldg!”

Him: “What for?”

Me: “No idea. They are yelling at people to get out of street.”
“Ok my neighbor just went out and said there is scaffolding loose on the building in next block and is swinging around”

Him: “Oh, that’s really scary.”

That was the extent of the excitement. Other then every so often from outside, “GET OUT OF THE STREET!” The rain stopped and the wind died down. I stayed up until about 2:00 A.M. and went to bed. My lights never even flickered. I had even boiled 6 eggs in case I lost power and couldn’t cook them. Today I had to throw 2 of them out, I didn’t know the yolks would get hard while still in the egg. The next day I went out and took pictures and video of the storm damage. There wasn’t a lot in my neighborhood, but it makes you realize how bad it COULD have been.

That’s my thrilling account of Hurricane Sandy. Hope you enjoyed reading it.