What I Learned from Super-Storm Sandy
Super-Storm Sandy was two years
ago but I remember it like it was yesterday. It was a Monday night and we were
safe at home together, my husband Al, daughters Christina and Debbie, and our
grandson Gio. We just finished dinner when Debbie noticed a flash of light. We
rushed to the front of the house and saw this. It is hard to see because it was
so bright, but an electrical line had come down in front of our driveway, and
the sparks were flying up right next to the tree that hangs over our house. We
called 911 multiple times but the fire trucks did not come. My husband, of
course, was enjoying this show, not at all worried but us girls were screaming
like middle-schoolers. Both the front and side doors were blocked by the sparks
so we decided if the house caught on fire, we would jump out a side window. “What
do we do, mom?” they asked me, as if I knew. I had no idea. The firemen were
supposed to come and save us, and where were they?? I told them to put on their
shoes and jackets and put their pocketbooks on their arms so just in case the
house caught on fire and we had to jump out the window, we were ready. It was
amazing how quickly they did what I said, especially since, as 20-somethings,
both are usually reluctant to take my advice.
Turns out our house did not burn
down and the electrical fire went out by itself when the storm took out all the
electricity on our block. In the light of day, as we walked up our dead end
street, we discovered why the firemen never arrived. A huge tree had fallen
across the street, blocking it. Turned out the downed tree was a good thing: it
put us on the top of the list of repairs and our electricity was only out for
hours and not days as many people had to endure.
Perhaps you have your own story
of that storm and the aftermath: weeks of electricity outage, lost days at
work, rotting food, endless gasoline lines, family or friends camping at your house,
or maybe you were camping at theirs.
But our Super Storm Sandy story did
not end there. As a matter of fact it continues on today. But before I explain
that part, let me fill you in on some family history. About 30 years ago, my
husband bought a beach cottage with his dad as a family get-away/investment. It
is in a small beach resort community called Ocean Beach Unit 3. It is tucked
away on a tiny sliver of land, two blocks wide. Our cottage is a half block from
the bay and a block and a half from the ocean. Located in between Point
Pleasant and Mantoloking to the north and Ortley Beach and Seaside Heights to
the south, it is a community of mostly two bedroom homes, about the size of a
big two car garage, but location-location-location, as they say. It was
wonderful place to get together with family and raise our daughters. Every summer we would pack everything we
could fit into our car, drive down right after school was out in June and we
would return the day after Labor Day. My daughters made great friends and we
all have delightful memories.
Because our home was so close to
two large bodies of water, I always had the thought in my mind that it was only
a matter of time before a storm would come and blow our home away. But years
went by. We survived several devastating storms, and although we had neighbors
closer to the water whose homes had flooded, our cottage stayed dry. So we were lulled into a false sense of
security.
It was the summer of 2011 when my
husband opened the flood insurance bill and announced “we can’t afford to pay
this.” But we no longer had a mortgage and we were not obligated to keep it so I
told him, don’t pay it. A month later, Governor Christy was on TV evacuating
the shore communities for Hurricane Irene. Our daughters were at the beach with
friends at the time and called us, “What do we do, mom?” I had no idea. It was
too late to pay the flood insurance bill now. I told them to put everything inside the
house, lift everything from the floor they could. “Take home everything you
ever want to see again,” I told them, “because when this is over, the house
might just be swept away. And come home right now!”
Again we survived Irene with no
damage at all. So the following year, when Governor Christy was again talking
about evacuating for a storm named Sandy, we were not overly concerned. We had
a busy weekend planned, including a wedding, so when someone volunteered to
check on and close up our beach cottage, we welcomed the opportunity not to go
down ourselves. After all, we had escaped unscathed up to this point. How bad
could this storm be?
After Super Storm Sandy was over
and the electricity came back on here in Bloomfield, we were glued to the TV.
And as we watched the live feed of the aerial videos of the Jersey shore, we
began to realize the extent of the devastation. The peninsula where our beach
house was had been turned into an island. The ocean met the bay and created a
new inlet at Mantoloking to the north of us, and water had also swept away most
of Seaside and Ortley to the south, cutting off both ways onto the island. We
hoped, we prayed that somehow our home had been spared but we could not be sure. The more photos and videos we saw, the more our hopes
crumbled and we began to fear the worst.
It was 25 days later, the day
after Thanksgiving, when Al, Christina, her boyfriend Mike, and I waited in
line for 3 hours, crawling in traffic, to get onto the island to see our home. Everywhere
we looked the damage was breath-taking. We found our home, still standing, but
water had come in, to the tune of about 19 inches. There was still water in the
dresser drawers, the oven, the refrigerator, the pots
and pans. Everything felt wet and smelled foul. The lion’s share of our
furniture, all the mattresses and any electrical items were carried out of the
house to the curb. The shell of our home that remained was covered with sludge
from the bay and sewer water. The entire island had no electricity,
no gas, no water and no sewer. The island was under Marshall Law and everyone
had to leave before dark. During the following week after the first visit to
our wet moldy house, Christina developed bronchitis.
It was overwhelming. We had no
flood insurance and FEMA assistance was not offered those owning secondary
homes, which is totally understandable. Any work we had to do, we had to do
ourselves. Everyone we talked to was frantic about the mold that festered in
the homes left wet for weeks. Winter was coming with no running water, heat or
electricity for miles. And my family, who does great when we vacation together,
tends to bicker and procrastinate when doing family projects together. Which
was why we never did family projects together. But we could not walk away from
this project. We all loved our beach house too much.
So we began to work and pray. We
prayed for provision and God gave us dear generous friends who provided funds
for the many things we had to purchase. My frugal husband had unspent money
stashed away in his underwear drawer that I started counting in desperation and
we discovered much more than we thought. We prayed for wisdom about how to
remove the mold, and made many day trips to the beach with containers of water,
bottles of bleach, masks, and endless pairs of plastic gloves.
We prayed for strength and the
Lord provided us with Mike who was our hero. Mike took supplies back and forth
for us in his truck, found a gently used stove just the right size, ripped out
walls, put up sheet rock, and most importantly, encouraged my husband to keep
working when he would have procrastinated and given up. Christina, Debbie, and Mike went down on their
own to clean the muck, remove the ruined flooring, carry out a soggy cabinet,
and dispose of the old refrigerator full of rotting food.
Work at the beach house was
depressing and exhausting. We had to carry in water to drink and water for
cleaning, a generator for electricity, a propane heater for warmth, and a pot
to pee in, literally. There was no place to buy supplies or lunch on the island,
and no clean place to eat. We had to eat in our cars. We could only stay during
daylight, and afterwards made the long trip home, filthy dirty and totally drained.
We found we not only had to repair what
the storm damaged, but ripping down our walls revealed other rotted areas of
our cottage we had to rebuild.
I prayed most of all that our
family would not come to blows on this project, because truth be told, my
husband is stubborn and I am controlling. He is talented in fixing things but
wants to put them back together with wire and duct tape. He struggles to finish
projects so there is always that piece that is not quite done yet. I prayed I
would be patient and gentle with him and my daughters, because in the fear and
fray of all that needed to be done, I knew it was my default to be a screaming
ranting shrew. In the end I did not want to have a repaired home and a torn
apart family. And the Lord in His mercy helped me to do that.
Little by little our house came
back together and we were so grateful to be back in our beach cottage by the time the
summer season started in 2013, but the battered houses were still everywhere. On
the news we saw the ads stating “Jersey, Stronger Than the Storm”. I understand
the governor was trying to encourage people to come to the shore communities
because the businesses were hurting but the sentiment did not coincide with
what I saw. Stronger than the storm? Really? To see all
these sights in person, and remember what it was before, did something to my
soul. Suddenly I saw, up close and personal, the power of nature. That first summer after Sandy, walking
in the area gave me nightmares. All of these photos, we took our selves in our
community within walking distance from our cottage. Our
beach community, a haven of peace and joy for our family for decades, suddenly
became a horror, totally devastated, a natural disaster.
We think we are smart enough and
strong enough for anything. And we just are not. We are fragile. What we build
is fragile. Your world and everything in it could all get blown away in a
moment. My world did.
Staying at the shore that first summer was sad and scary and humbling.
It was like visiting a dear sick friend.
Two years have passed since the
storm of the century. Al and I were at the cottage earlier this month, taking
more photos and we are still working on parts in our cottage left undone, but
at least we have a home we can sleep in. Some families are still fighting with
insurance companies to pay and others with builders to finish constructing
their new homes, like our friend house. There are homes half done. There
are shells of homes, gutted and empty. There are vacant lots. There’s
construction in the streets and enormous trucks and dumpsters everywhere. Labor Day ended
the “stay pretty for the tourists” pause and the frantic pace of rebuilding had
started again. Super Storm Sandy is long over for most of you, but not for me. Not yet.
But even if you are not
rebuilding a damaged home, you have experienced storms in your life. Life
brings much uncertainty but there is one thing we can count on, storms will
come. It may be something as brief as a 24 hour stomach virus, although at the
time, it seems like forever, right? Or it could be a long-term chronic medical
or physical condition for your child, your spouse or a parent. Or a financial
downturn, or career setback, or relational conflict. Storms come in all
different shapes and sizes. They come at unexpected times. Maybe you are in the
middle of a storm right now and you are wondering, am I stronger than this
storm? And you look around at the devastation and you don’t think so.
How can you be brave in the
middle of a super storm? Here’s what I have learned.
First, it’s good to be prepared.
Even though the Bloomfield house did not catch fire that night and we did not
have to jump out the window, it was good to have our shoes and jackets on just
in case. I wish we had heeded the warnings and gone down to our beach house
before the storm and took care of things better there.
Second, it’s good to dive in and
just do the hard work. For me, it was easy to get overwhelmed with all the
things that had to be done and I got tired just thinking about it. But when I
focused on only the next thing, and did it, it was still hard but manageable. I
found that starting a task was the hardest part. And that is where fear is a
good thing. Fear is a great motivator. We need to remember that being brave
kicks into gear when there is something to fear. Courage is not the absence of
fear, it is fear turned into resolve and action.
For me, prayer was a huge part of
the process. Prayer changed things for us. God provided in so many ways: with
friends to help work on the house or provide funds and furniture. I thank God
the storm did not come until my daughters were grown and could help us in the rebuilding
process. God gave wisdom in choices and calmed fears especially for dealing
with the mold. Even the weather that first winter was a great blessing to us.
Mike, who was so instrumental in helping us, works as a landscaper who also
does snow removal. The winter of 2012-2013 was mild so he had free time to help
us. Plus the lack of snow made being at the beach house in the winter bearable.
If we had to make repairs during the horrid winter of 2013-2014, we never would
have been able to complete it by May.
As we plan for life’s storms,
everyone trusts something or someone, and I have seen that in my beach
community. Some neighbors trusted in their own strength, some relied on flood
insurance, FEMA or the government to provide. Some had relied on their
well-built homes or the dunes. From what I saw, none of these came through
100%. Many large homes and all the dunes were swept away. FEMA and the
government were overwhelmed. Even these big organizations did not know what to
do with the storm’s far-reaching damage. Many neighbors did not get enough
insurance to rebuild as they needed to, and others did not get the money they
were entitled to receive. Everyone trusts something. We chose to trust God and
it is my testimony that even though God did not take away the storm, He helped
us through it, far beyond anything we could have asked or imagined.
I think God allows storms in our
lives to get our attention. Like my adult daughters who are more apt to seek my
counsel and take my advice when there is an emergency, I must confess I am like
that too! When I am in over my head, I pray more, I am more apt to ask for help,
and I listen better. I am also more open to change. I have been changed by this
experience. I am more patient, less controlling, and less fearful because we
survived this. Our family has grown closer in the storm.
I could have dwelled on “God, why
did you do this to us?” We did pray at first that we be spared the flood water.
But when God said no to that, we trusted Him and continued to pray through the
process. God sometimes says no because He has a greater plan. He allows the
storm but always stays right besides us through it, if we let Him, if we are
aware of Him. It is so difficult to see this, but because we hung in there and
trusted God, we found Him trustworthy.
Today, our beach house is in much
better shape than it has been for years. The walls are more solid than ever.
The house has a new refrigerator (that’s my favorite part!), more space, fresh
paint, new furniture. This is not true for just my house. All the houses around
us are built better than before. Governor Christy was half right with his
slogan. Certainly Jersey wasn’t stronger THAN the storm. But we were stronger
AFTER the storm.
And in spite of all the work
there is still to be done, there remains so much beauty in our community. We are grateful we had room at our house for
old friends to come and visit us since their house is not completed yet. Here
are the girls and their friends this summer, all grown up. We are hopeful next
summer their house will be ready and we will have more time to enjoy together.
As I thought what I learned in
the storm, I found this from the book of the Bible written by James, the
brother of Jesus. James knew all about experiencing the storms of life, and I
feel his words sum up this experience for me.
Don’t run from tests and hardships, brothers
and sisters. As difficult as they are, you will ultimately find joy in them. If
you embrace them, your faith will blossom under pressure and teach you true
patience as you endure.
And true patience brought on by endurance
will equip you to complete the long journey and cross the finish line—mature,
complete, and wanting nothing.
If you don’t have all the wisdom needed for
this journey, then all you have to do is ask God for it; and God will grant all
that you need. He gives lavishly and never scolds you for asking.
James 1:2-5 (The Voice)
Storms come.
When I talk to women, it seems to me that we are always in the middle of one
storm or another. I am sure you have been thinking of your personal storm. Let
me encourage you that although nothing
is going to take away all the storms of life, but God wants to be there for
you, to direct and comfort you in your storm!
Do you have a story from the storm? Please comment and share!
