Life As We Knew It Analog - For a Week!

Damage to a pier near the historic terminal building at Liberty State Park is photographed on Friday, Nov. 16, 2012. Lauren Casselberry/The Jersey Journal

On October 29, 2012, Superstorm Hurricane Sandy made landfall near Atlantic City and worked towards my hometown of Jersey City. This was a little over a year since Hurricane Irene had ravaged the eastern coast of New Jersey. Thankfully, my family was able to avoid much of the impact brought upon by that hurricane. In all my ignorance as an 11-year-old, I wondered how bad this situation could really be relative to my prior experience. I remember going to BJ’s, the Costco equivalent in New Jersey, and many of the shelves were empty, mainly the non-perishables and charcoal. I also noticed that many people were loading sandbags into their cars. Later that day, I saw sandbags outside of my apartment and began to realize the gravity of the situation. My best friend conveniently lived on the main floor apartment. I saw her dad taping the windows in anticipation of strong winds. My mom and I carried on as though all was fine. We were not accustomed to hurricanes since there were uncommon where we resided in Kenya. We had only been in the U.S. for two years at the time.

Although there were multiple active travel advisories, my mother was asked to go to work. She was unable to come home as a result of extensive flooding and strong winds, which made travel nearly impossible. In fact, at some point, the wind speed in NJ was at about 80 mph! My best friend’s dad worked at a Doggie Day Care. As the storm progressed, he began to worry about the dogs that were left there overnight. He left in a hurry to ensure that the dogs were safe and immediately got stuck there because the flooding made it impossible to drive back to the apartment. My best friend, her sister, and I, unaware of what was happening, started jumping with joy because we could watch T.V. all night until our parents made it back the next morning, then the power went out! We kept each other company until my friend’s parents came back a day or so later.

The book I read that gave me unnecessary anxiety (Outschool, 2022) 

I remember being so bored since I couldn’t play outside and the power was out, so I started reading Life as We Knew It - shown above. I think I chose the worst book to read at the time because although it was fictional, it was so reminiscent of my situation at the time. Here's the book's plot: there’s a worldwide disaster brought upon by the moon’s closer orbit to earth following an asteroid impact. Although it just packed on my anxiety, I kept reading, hoping I would gain insight on how to survive this hurricane which felt apocalyptic as the days went by. After finally coming home very early in the morning, I remember my mother grabbed a 5-gallon gas container and spent nearly 6 dollars a gallon after waiting in line all day on a queue that spanned several blocks! The same thing happened in the book! I was convinced it was the beginning of the end.

Time Lapse of Hurricane Sandy - Statue of Liberty (Andrew Cytraro, 2012)

Given that we were just a few blocks away from Liberty State Park, my mom and I often went on walks together to enjoy the scenery. When clean-up finally began, my mother and I decided to walk to the park. The walk to the park was somber. Large trees that had stood strong now lay on top of cars, blocking the sidewalks. Traffic lights were out, and the most somber sight of all for me was the absolutely destroyed park. Most of it had been closed off by metal barricades and caution tape. The damage was so extensive that some portions of the park still hadn’t been fully restored when I last visited in 2021. The video above depicts the hurricane relative to the statue of liberty, and the video below shows some of the extent of the damage to property and land at the entrance of the park. There have been about 115 recorded hurricanes in New Jersey, but this was one of the costliest and deadliest hurricanes that New Jersey has experienced. Hurricane Sandy resulted in a total of over $30 billion dollars of damage. For reference, Hurricane Irene resulted in $1 billion dollars worth of damage. Hurricane Sandy was terrifying, but thankfully, we made it through.

Liberty State Park After Hurricane Sandy (S. Sanghvi, 2012)

WORKS CITED

Cutraro, Andrew. Liberty State Park after Hurricane Sandy - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlhvPqcv_DU. 

  Finn, Donovan, et al. “A Region Recovers: Planning for Resilience after Superstorm Sandy.” Journal of Planning Education and Research, July 2019, doi:10.1177/0739456X19864145.

Journal, Anthony J. Machcinski/The Jersey. “Liberty State Park Looks like 'a Disaster Movie' after Sandy; Cleanup Costs Could Reach $5M.” Nj, 16 Nov. 2012, https://www.nj.com/hudson/2012/11/liberty_state_park_recovers_af.html. 

Sanghvi , S. Liberty State Park after Hurricane Sandy - YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlhvPqcv_DU.