Hurricane Sandy...the day after

As the world knows, the north eastern region of the USA was struck by Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012. These photos were taken as the storm subsided, October 30th. I've continued taking photos and will share them in a timely fashion.

This first shot was taken right in front of my house, facing the corner of Garfield and Jackson Crescent.
Power was out here by early afternoon.

This was the first time I have ever been alone during a storm and frankly, I was scared. Dinner though was an adventure. I took some left overs from the fridge, cooked ravioli, pulled pork, homemade tomato sauce and put it all in a frying pan with shredded mozzarella on top. YUM! Thank goodness the top of my gas stove was still working.

As I walked the neighborhood Tuesday morning this was the first house I saw with a tree upon it. Only 3 houses away from me, reality struck home and the tears began to flow. Tears of sadness for my lovely new neighborhood, tears of sadness for the unknown world (no contact via phone/internet/tv/radio) and yes tears of relief that my little cottage was still whole.

By the time I saw this house I had seen many others in similar distress. For some reason though I thought this house was occupied by a family with children and I didn't want to imagine a child's fear if this monstrosity came crashing upon one's bedroom.

The root systems in some cases were enormous, almost more to deal with than the trees themselves. These were large healthy trees.

We had little rain with the storm, it was a blessing for us. We would have lost so many more trees if the grounds were saturated. Look close and you'll see how dry the soil under this root mass is just as the storm was leaving our area.

It was hard to venture far from home on October 30th. The winds were still strong, squalls blew through and there was an underlying sense of "what might yet come".

A few blocks down the road the aftermath on Coolidge stopped me in my tracks. I only had my phone with me on that trip but had to snap another photo.

We were lucky to have power at my bank in Islandia so I had to be there the next few days. In the next post you'll see photos I took a few days after the storm.

melanie