CHICAGO – Hurricane Sandy, popularly known as Frankenstorm, barreled through the Eastern Seaboard late Monday night into early Tuesday morning leaving all affected areas in complete devastation. States along the mid-Atlantic region were pelted with forceful winds reaching 90 mph, torrential rainfall and powerful flooding. Many citizens evacuated their homes to avoid the powerful storm as directed by city officials, however many remained put, hoping to withstand the consequences.
The merciless storm forcibly closed Wall Street for 2 days straight, the New York City subway system was closed due to extreme flooding in underground tunnels and all Tristate bridges were closed, leaving millions of citizens stranded.
Trishula Patel, 23, Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism student, was trapped in her Manhattan apartment while the storm swept through New York City.
Patel, originally from Harare, Zimbabwe, had never experienced a natural disaster as powerful as the “Frankenstorm.”
“When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, we had Hurricane Ike in 2008, but that was pretty tame compared to Hurricane Sandy,” said Patel. “Zimbabwe is usually very hot and rarely sees any natural disaster, so this was definitely a first for me.”
Despite Patel’s lack of experience with natural disasters, she knew to stock up on essential items and took all necessary precautions by preparing for potential electrical outages and burst pipes.
“I bought candles, torches and as much pre-made food as possible. I went to the supermarket Sunday night and most of the items I wanted were already low in quantity,” explained Patel. “I also filled all of my big pots, bowls and bathtub with water in case our pipes burst.”
While Patel was fortunate enough to not experience a power outage during the storm, she said every loud crash and violent wind gust made her heart race and expect the electricity to shut off at any moment.
“Cleaning up after this storm is going to be a long and incredibly costly situation,” she said. “There are still tons of people without electricity throughout New York City, trees down on every block and the crane is still dangling above buildings on 57th St. These next few months are going to require a lot of time, effort and money to bring the city back to normal.
Columbia University canceled all classes Monday and Tuesday, but will resume normal class schedules Wednesday.
Patel is happy to see Columbia University reopen and the city slowly recover from the destruction caused by the hurricane, but is still “annoyed because the subway system is still closed and the buses add nearly an hour to the commute to work and class.”
While New York City seemed to receive the brunt of the destruction caused by the storm, cities west of the Atlantic coast were also affected by the powerful winds and flooding.
Karen Bullock, 22, of Pittsburg, PA., AmeriCorps VISTA employee, felt the heavy impact of the storm nearly 400 miles west from the Atlantic coast.
“I’d consider myself pretty familiar with big storms since I’m from northeastern Illinois, but this storm was the worst I’ve ever dealt with,” said Bullock. “I was mostly worried about losing electricity and my pipes bursting. Thankfully none of that happened.”
Pittsburghers rushed to stock up on food and other necessities prior to the storm, explained Bullock.
“I went to Target on Monday afternoon to buy some storm essentials, but I ended up leaving with only bread and candles. The lines were ridiculous and everything that could be useful was either nearly gone or completely out of stock,” she said.
Bullock explained that the powerful winds and flooding left most of Pittsburgh closed on Tuesday.
“My office was closed because [AmeriCorps VISTA] didn’t want to risk having the employees travel in these dangerous conditions,” explained Bullock. “Since I had electricity throughout the entire storm, I just worked from home.”
Most stores and schools reopened Wednesday, so Pittsburgh recovered fairly quickly from the storm, explained Bullock.
“The biggest problem I had, aside from being cooped up in my apartment all day, was the flooding,” said Bullock. “ The laundry room in the basement of my apartment building flooded pretty badly, but it has already been taken care of.”