For many residents of the New York area who were affected by Hurricane Sandy, the process of recovery continues two years later as the city rebuilds. The New York Times asked readers this month to share their stories, highlighting any lessons they learned in the aftermath of the storm. We wanted to know what they would do differently and what advice they had for others. Here is a selection of excerpts from their responses:
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“No matter how prepared you are for the effects of a hurricane, you’re never prepared enough to cope with the loss of your home.”
— Annemarie Tierney 50, who lost her home and a rental home in Highlands, N.J. She is living in Holmdel, N.J., while she rebuilds.
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“We learned first-hand that the best way for us to heal from our devastation and loss was to help others recover.”
— Karen Taylor-Burke, 42, of Leonardo, N.J., whose home was destroyed. She and her husband hope to be done rebuilding next spring.
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“You think your house is permanent; life and other things as well. When you lose your house and every thing you own, you learn everything is temporary.”
— Kenny Vance, 70, of Rockaway Beach, N.Y., who lost his house of 40 years.
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“The sun always rises and the beauty of the beach never diminishes.”
— Patricia Hickey, 58, of Rockaway Beach, N.Y., whose condo is still being repaired.
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“Cliche, but there is no place like home. Our community came together. It was amazing.”
— Kelly Leverock, 39, of Union Beach, N.J., whose home had to be demolished.
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“If you live in a flood zone, keep receipts of purchases for reimbursement later. Keep copies of important documents in a safe deposit box.”
— Patrick Brosnahan, 81, of Broad Channel, Queens, whose house was flooded and had to be rebuilt.
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1. Evacuate
2. Things are only things
3. Family, friends and community are most important
4. Do your due diligence in selecting a contractor
— Aldis “Allie” Hagen, 55, of Breezy Point, Queens, whose home burned to the ground.
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“I learned that New Yorkers are warm people and will do everything they can to help. Even people who lost everything will put others first.”
— Debbie Farkas, 27, whose lights in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, flickered. She has since moved to Guatemala City.
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“Being born and raised in New York, I wasn’t prepared, but I am ready now. I’ll do whatever it takes if there is ever a next time, just like I did this time. Just with a bit more experience that’s all.”
— Elaine Rodriguez, 55, of Rockaway Park, Queens, whose basement flooded and who lost four cars.
Do you have any lessons you learned from Hurricane Sandy or advice you would give? Please share it in the comments section.
You may have heard that New York City has a totally awesome new official explainer.
She moved to town only a few months ago and seems to spend a lot of time traveling, but she’s still managed to learn a lot about this crazy place, and she is eager to share it with you.
Without stumbling too much, and game the whole time, Ms. Swift explains what a bodega is, and how to pronounce Houston Street, and the difference between a stoop and a porch.
City Room managed track down some imaginary outtakes from the shoot and is proud to present some vocabulary lessons from Ms. Swift that you won’t hear anywhere else:
• Knish: “‘Nish.’ Oops. Sorry. My Jewish friends say the K is not silent, so it’s Ka-nish. All I know (ha! the K is silent there!) is that it’s made of potatoes, comes in different shapes but is 100 percent kosher kool!”
• Stop ‘n’ Frisk: “A lot of towns have these places called Stop & Shop, which is like a supermarket? Stop ‘n’ Frisk is sort of like the reverse — instead of you stopping in and asking where the chewing gum is, someone else will stop you and ask you if you have any chewing gum. Remember, New Yorkers are courteous, so it’s rude to say no!” Read more…
I am a psychotherapist and my office, a brownstone on the Upper East Side, shares a courtyard with the Rudolf Steiner School. In between hot summer days with my air-conditioner’s whirring, and the colder months with windows shut tight, I enjoy fall and spring with my window wide open and the sounds of an occasional bird, siren or horn honking from nearby Madison Avenue.
Like clockwork around the second week of September, another set of sounds emanates from the courtyard. Banging drums, horns out of tune and rhythms that make no sense waft up to my window loudly. My patients and I wink at each other knowingly. It is the school’s band beginning another year.
Fast forward six months to spring … the windows are open again. This time my patients and I will open our ears in amazement. The Rudolf Steiner school band now sounds like a symphony.
The week began on a frightening note as a 5-year-old boy from the Bronx was tested for Ebola at Bellevue Hospital Center on Monday.
When a blood test came back negative in the evening, there was a collective sense of relief.
“Good news!” the Bronx borough president, Rubén Díaz Jr., wrote on Twitter.
This was the latest test case for how city residents might respond to the threat of the virus.
The Times reporter Vivian Yee described the scene for us around East 172nd Street in Soundview.
As the news spread, and city workers arrived with pamphlets on Ebola, she said, “There was a sense of real dismay.”
Despite the city’s message since last week — that the virus is hard to contract — there was fear.
“As the day went on,” Ms. Yee said, “you saw some younger men — possibly it was a joke — riding through wearing face masks.”
(There were reports that children in the Bronx were bullied because of Ebola on Monday, and two boys from Senegal were reportedly injured in an attack.)
Later, mothers arrived at the school where it was believed the boy was enrolled in kindergarten to pick up their children early, even though it seemed the boy had not been in school in recent days.
A neighbor said the boy’s family had been in Guinea for about two weeks. He said the mother was a hairdresser and the father was a driver.
The parents of the schoolchildren “were not waiting for the results of the test,” Ms. Yee said.
The school did not tell parents if the boy who was hospitalized was a student there, but “a couple of the little kids said they had made a get-well card because they were told he was in the hospital,” Ms. Yee said.
On Monday, a nurse was released from quarantine in New Jersey and began making her way back to Maine. Kaci Hickox, the nurse who had been held in quarantine in a tent at a Newark hospital since Friday, was released in the early afternoon.
In the evening, a family from the Bronx – and possibly the entire city of New York – breathed a sigh of relief as a 5-year-old boy was cleared of Ebola by a blood test. The test came back negative, but city officials said the boy is being kept in the hospital, just to be safe.
The boy had been placed in isolation after he grew ill following a trip to Guinea.
That’s all for the day’s updates. We will be back with more should there be new developments.
Ebola continues to dominate the news this morning.
A 5-year-old boy who recently returned from Guinea is being tested at Bellevue Hospital Center after developing symptoms consistent with the disease, city officials said.
And the nurse quarantined in New Jersey will be released from the hospital to complete her quarantine at home in Maine.
In the case of the boy, blood test results should be known by early afternoon, said Mary T. Bassett, the city’s health commissioner.
He was taken to Bellevue on Sunday and developed a fever while there, around 7 a.m. today, the city said.
Ram Raju, head of the city’s public hospitals, said that the authorities are still putting together a contact history for the boy.
The New York Post reported that five members of his family are quarantined in their apartment in the Bronx.
The nurse in New Jersey, Kaci Hickox, who was quarantined in a tent behind a Newark hospital on Friday after returning from Sierra Leone, will be released today pending federal approval, our colleagues Michael Barbaro and Marc Santora report this morning.
Ms. Hickox, who has tested negative for Ebola, became the voice of opposition to mandatory quarantine after she criticized her treatment as “inhumane.”
In other Ebola developments:
• On Sunday, the governors of New York and New Jersey, under pressure from President Obama and medical experts, eased restrictions on travelers returning from West Africa.
Both governors announced that people, including medical workers, who have had contact with Ebola patients but are asymptomatic could be quarantined at home, not at hospitals.
• Craig Spencer, the doctor being treated for Ebola at Bellevue, remains in serious but stable condition.
Have you noticed the graffiti
Marring the sidewalks and the streets
Of Brooklyn Heights?
It looks like a code with mysterious meanings,
Repeated every eight feet, painted in yellow
And occasionally red.
Ostensibly, these are directions for laying gas pipe
From National Grid.
According to sources as NASA and confirmed by both
The C.I.A. and the F.B.I., these are directions in
intergalactic code for landing small spacecraft
Carrying space passengers the size of rhesus monkeys.
Designed to fade in time, it is unlike
The stone landing sites for large spacecraft
Erected at Stonehenge, England, and Neogrange in
Ireland and in the Inca ruins in Peru.
The only place gas pipe was actually laid is at the
Intersection of Pierrepont Place and Columbia Heights,
Leaving raised mounds of blacktop on the sidewalk Pointing in the direction of the Children’s Park —
The only open space in the area.
When you hear sounds like fire sirens at night,
Lock your windows and your door,
Let National Grid welcome the visitors.