Wednesday, October 31, 2012

A Crazy Bitch Named Sandy


            Despite hopes that Hurricane Sandy would be a dud to New York like last year’s Hurricane Irene, New York was struck hard by the hurricane. Many parts of the city experienced intense flooding unlike the city has ever seen in its history.
           
            The wife and I are among the extremely lucky ones to have undisturbed power, cable and Internet throughout the hurricane. The most stress we faced was when we had to pause a streaming Netflix movie to tape up our windows during a very windy time. It’s been shocking to see images online of areas one is familiar with sitting under several feet of water. It is a luxury to have power and an Internet connection right now. I am very lucky to have a job where I can work at home. I am very lucky to even have a job at all right now.

            Eight people dying in a storm is terrible. But considering wide swaths of the city were flooded, hundreds of homes destroyed and hospitals evacuated, it’s damn impressive the body count is so low.

The weather kicked our city’s ass, but we don’t sit around feeling sorry for ourselves; we get back to work. People are already making plans and trying to figure out how to get things done without subways, which is no easy task. The MTA, never one for punctuality and particularly bad at dealing with the weather, will take a few days to get back up and running.

In New York, it is only a matter of time before things are back to business as usual. The city is too busy to be too sentimental for too long. New York runs on a constant buzz and bustle, and it takes major disasters or terrorist attacks to knock it off kilter, and then never for very long. 

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