Dispatches from the Storm Front W
hen Hurricane Sandy hit on Monday, October 29, southern New York and New Jersey felt the brunt of its fury. Hurricane-force winds blew apart houses on the New Jersey shore and Long Island as well as in the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and Staten Island near the ocean. For the first time in memory, the southern end of Manhattan flooded, knocking out the subway system. A huge swath of New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut lost electric power—in some areas for weeks—just as temperatures began to fall with the onset of winter. Within days, there was a shortage of gasoline and miles-long lines formed at gas stations. In this densely populated urban area, thousands of vulnerable people were trapped in high-rise apartments with no elevator service, no phone, and no heat. This tri-state area includes many Jewish Community Centers, and they struggled heroically to respond to the disaster as many of them suffered damage and power loss. We immediately established contact with JCCs so we could spread information across the JCC Movement. Here are some of the messages we received, edited for length only. Many of these came to us right after the storm and we are sharing them to give you a sense of the situation at that time in their own words.
3