So I got hit by Sandy, and lost power for a few days. That is a very, very mild problem compared to some of the destruction that the hurricane has wrought in other communities.
Still, my favorite excuse for everything that happened during this time was ‘we got hit by a hurricane’. Perhaps it’s a bit insensitive, but it is also a true statement: we DID get hit by a hurricane, and it wasn’t something I’d ever really lived through. Okay, there was Irene, but that hit my area much more lightly…Sandy made the entire region into a mess.
I’m one of the few people in my area to have power (I lost power during the storm, but regained it a few days later), so sometimes I feel a little bad, because I was hit so lightly by a storm that has killed people, burned down homes, flooded major areas, paralyzed entire districts. I see all the destruction on the news and hear it all by radio, but I’m both relieved and somewhat disappointed by the fact that I didn’t really suffer damage.
Relieved because I didn’t get hurt, because nobody close to me got hurt. Disappointed, because now I can’t empathize too well with the people who did, and because I’m always reminded that I was lucky.
A disaster that hits this close to home is a completely different experience than hearing or seeing a storm in the news in some faraway state or country. My first instinct when the hurricane hit was to try to frantically contact all my friends, try to make sure they were all okay. They were, fortunately, although I couldn’t say the same about the houses.
It is different, too, seeing the after effects of a storm on TV, versus driving around and seeing all the felled trees, wires, roofs, etc. for yourself. There is something innately personal there, that isn’t present when you watch news or listen to accounts on TV and radio.
Well, that’s not entirely unexpected. We did get hit by a hurricane, after all.
Ambient Maze 