As a kid, I remember having very mixed emotions about geohazards. On one hand, I was very, very scared of the thunderstorms, tornado warnings and hurricanes that passed through the DC metro area. On the other hand, however, some of my fondest memories are from geohazards: playing in three feet of snow after “snowmageddon” or walking through hurricanes Sandy with my dad to go get a bacon egg and cheese sandwich. The latter memory is the geohazard I will talk about.
My experience with hurricane Sandy began with my family heading towards the hurricane. The weekend before the hurricane was forecasted to hit the DC area, my family went to Delaware beach to close up the house that my grandmother had there. However, Hurricane Sandy was “created” almost two weeks early as a “disturbance” off the coast of Africa became a tropical storm in the Caribbean around the 22nd of October. However, at this point I was still in school and had no idea what was coming. However, by the 26th the DC mayor had declared an emergency and this worried my parents and grandmother enough that we decided to check my grandmother's house by the beach. We left late on the 26th and as we were heading towards my grandmother's house I remember noticing how many more cars were heading west, while we were one of a few cars heading east…towards the storm.
The 27th was a hectic day. It was overcast and the rain and wind began to pick up throughout the day as Sandy’s first rainbands hit the area. I remember everyone rushing around the house closing windows and cleaning as CNN played in the background. I also remember at one point we had the radio on and they encouraged everyone to leave by 3pm so that the roads were not too crowded and people had enough time to evacuate. While we left my grandmother's house at 4pm the roads were surprisingly clear and we made it home to our house just outside of DC.
When we got back home, I felt a mixture of emotions. School had been canceled which made me feel great but my parents told me that we would be sleeping on the second floor of our house for the next few days because they were worried about the force and danger of Sandy’s winds. Over the rest of the weekend and into the week, the whole DC area shutdown and weathered the storm. Only going out and braving the wind and rain to get an occasional bacon egg and cheese sandwich. My family did the same thing. We watched the storm move through the DC area and up the coast where it, unlike other hurricanes, continued to wreak damage.
Sandy’s damage was incredible, and most of the literature around it focuses on its damage. The storm surge, which hit New York and New Jersey, was especially deadly, despite mandatory evacuation being issued across the east coast. In spite of these orders the Red Cross found that 117 people died as a result of Sandy. 45% of these deaths occurred in “A” or poetry evacuation zones and 40 of the 117 deaths occurred in houses from drowning . From this information, we can conclude that there may have been much less death if people had followed evacuation orders and left their houses. However, as in my experience, where my family initially headed into danger and then did not follow orders and left the evacuation zone after the deadline, this is easier said than done.
Works Cited
Ashburn, Lauren. “Hurricane Sandy Turns Washington, D.C., Into a Ghost Town.” The Daily Beast, October 30, 2012. https://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/30/hurricane-sandy-turns-washington-d-c-into-a-ghost-town. Asheville, University of North Carolina at, Johns Hopkins University, and University of Tennessee. “Hurricane Sandy: Timeline and Impact.” Treehugger. Accessed October 11, 2023. https://www.treehugger.com/timeline-and-impact-of-hurricane-sandy-5114568. Casey-Lockyer, Mary, Rebecca J. Heick, Caitlin E. Mertzlufft, Ellen E. Yard, Amy F. Wolkin, Rebecca S. Noe, and Michelle Murti. “Deaths Associated with Hurricane Sandy — October–November 2012.” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 62, no. 20 (May 24, 2013): 393–97.
Photo credit - J. Scott Applewhite for the AP
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