After Hurricane Sandy: Lending a Hand in the Rockaways


















In my historical neighborhood of Brooklyn brownstones, my friends and I resumed our lives the day after Sandy easily, suffering nothing more than intermittent internet service and a smattering of downed trees. But just a few miles away, there was utter devastation. My fifteen-year-old daughter attends school with the sons and daughters of many residents of the coastal towns of the Rockaways, an 11-mile peninsula that is part of the city's borough of Queens. She grew increasingly alarmed by the frantic messages and tragic photos of gutted bedrooms filling up her Facebook page.

"Mom," she pleaded, "we need to do something."
"What do your friends need?" I asked.
"Everything," she answered.

















I sent out an email that day to a dozen moms in my neighborhood asking for water, contractor bags, bleach, peanut butter, blankets, propane. The essentials needed to survive and facilitate clean up. My best friend Eliza agreed to do the driving. Heading down Flatbush Avenue toward the Rockaways, we saw lines of cars that stretched for blocks and blocks: all waiting their turn to buy gas. Crossing the bridge onto the pennisula, the bay was pristine and the air clear. I scanned the shoreline looking for signs of destruction. Sanitation trucks stood waiting and within minutes we entered Belle Harbor, a neighborhood of densely packed homes. I saw National Guard and police officers, but it appeared that the residents resolutely handled the clean up efforts on their own. Garbage bags of debris were piled high, often topped with soggy mattresses and broken pieces of furniture. Mud and water was everywhere. In front of one house, a broken lifeguard chair sat atop a huge mound of mud. A beach umbrella provided shade and a sign stuck into the mud-also salvaged from the beach-read "No Swimming."


















Eliza and I drove further down the peninsula, passing commercial zones utterly destroyed by fire, toward the poorer areas of the Rockaways. We looked for signs of organized relief efforts. Passing a strip mall, we saw a large station for distributing food set up in the parking lot. But as the blocks stretched further, I wondered how residents without any means of transport would reach it. Red Cross ambulances-mobile relief units-occasionally drove past us and Greenpeace had set up a truck with a giant solar panel to provide power. Seeing the high-rise apartments, the filthy streets, the lone grocery store boarded up and all but abandoned-none of this seemed nearly enough.


















More than half way down the peninsula, we finally found a street corner where volunteers were distributing food and supplies. There were church groups and hipsters-some with no more than a table and a hand painted sign saying "free food." At least twenty garbage bags filled with donated clothes sat on the sidewalk. With no one to organize and distribute the clothing, residents picked through the clothing themselves. I was shocked at the absence of any kind of government or community agency involvement. This was a ground-up effort and the energy and the commitment of the volunteers in the face of the chaos was impressive. Some were even going door to door in the apartment houses offering to bring food and water. "People are afraid to come out, " a volunteer told us as we handed over the jars of peanut butter and cans of tuna packed into the back of the car. "So we are going to them." "What more do you need?" we asked. "Diapers," she answered. "All sizes."



By now it was late afternoon. The temperature was dropping and because there was no power, the streets would soon be completely dark. There were some emergency lights set up, but not nearly enough to provide safety and comfort. Eliza turned her minivan around and we headed back to the bridge, back to our families and warm, comfortable homes. The next day, I saw news reports and photographs on Facebook showing that more donations and volunteers were pouring into the Rockaways. A visit from the city Mayor Mike Bloomberg to the area-while tense-seemed to have galvanized the city into action. But so many challenges are still unmet and, frankly, can't be solved with a donation of a 12 pack of paper towels. Classrooms have to be found for the children without schools and shelter for the families without homes. Already, the weather reports forecast a nor'easter blowing through the city this week. With no power, how will Rockaways' residents stay warm? These communities, as well as those in Staten Island and coastal New Jersey, are in crisis. And they are going to need our support for months to come.