Hurricane Sandy

At first it was kind of fun. I remember Hugo hitting when my family lived about 30 minutes from the South Carolina coast. We woke up with our above-ground pool in the neighbor's yard, but as an 8-year-old, it felt like an adventure. We were stocked up on food and water and hunkered down together, all sleeping in one room so us kids would feel safer. Some part of me thought it would be like that this time, except with less damage.

I'm not 8 anymore.

Board games by candlelight and cooking a random assortment of thawing food wore out its welcome after about 24 hours. Then I started to feel crazy. I read on the living room floor, up against the glass doors, and start to feel panicky as the sun sets. I wake up and shower in the cold, and get dressed in the dark, and feel depressed and antsy to get out. I walk around the neighborhood and see trees through people's roofs and on their cars. I see telephone poles snapped in half. I hear on our emergency radio that 100 houses burnt to the ground in Queens. I have to figure out how to get to work with no Long Island Railroad, very limited subway service, and a city out of gas. People are desperate and panicked, siphoning gas from other people's cars, breaking into fights in lines at gas stations that just got a shipment, forming lines over a mile long waiting for gas that just came in and then having it run out when they pull up to the pump eight hours later. Grocery stores are empty because they're without power. People who depend on hourly wages are struggling to feed their families until their workplaces open again and until they can get transportation there. Lower Manhattan is in complete chaos - dark, flooded, and with no subways. Rats are roaming the streets because they got flooded out of the subway tunnels. Homeless people are camped out in the lobbies of apartment buildings whose electric security is down. Cabs are out of gas and the few running subways stop at 34th St and are so packed that you literally get carried onto the car by a mob. Roads are packed the first day after the hurricane because no one can use public transportation, and empty the second day because everyone is out of gas.

It's eerie and post-apocalpytic. For every story of someone helping someone else, there is another of someone taking advantage. Nicole and I are huddled in our cold, dark basement apartment, refusing to leave the cats as neighbors around us (or at least those without generators), and ultimately even my in-laws, flee to the homes of generous family and friends whose power has been restored.

We were supposed to close on our house Monday. All closings are adjourned and pending re-inspections at the bank's expense. We are trying to figure out our next step when we are in oases of power, like at work or at Aunt Laura's a mile away. Our Halloween rock-the-dress photo shoot was canceled and our photographer is cheerfully reaching out to us to try to reschedule when we can barely keep our sanity intact.

I'm grateful to be alive, grateful that both the house we live in and the house we are buying are both okay, grateful that we filled on gas before the storm and stocked up on dry goods and water, grateful to wake up in our cold apartment with our cats happily snuggled up against us for warmth, grateful for salaried jobs where we can take days off if needed without affecting our ability to pay bills. But I'm also tired, depressed, lethargic, and, six days later, really ready to have this behind us as a memory.