When Hurricane Sandy happened in 2012, I was still in high school and had an average commute of an hour and a half by train. The most memorable thing for me about that time is that my school, as well as many others, was closed for a week. Subway stations and homes were flooded, phone and electric lines were knocked down, and New York was in need of repair. However, in the little corner of Elmhurst where I live, after a night of strong winds and rain, the neighborhood was again serene.

I remember venturing out of my house to meet with several friends who lived in my neighborhood the day after the hurricane hit. We met up in front of my house and walked around several blocks to see if there had been any destruction in the area. The most exciting thing we saw was a fallen tree. Besides this and several branches on the streets, we could barely tell that anything had occurred the night before and I assumed that life would go back to normal the next day. Then I turned the television on and saw the extent of devastation on the news. Some areas were missing power for days, and others were uninhabitable. Some schools became temporary shelters for those who could not live in their own homes. Later some friends would tell me about how they had to go stay with relatives while repairing their own homes. For me at that time though, it was hard to comprehend the bizarre juxtaposition between my barely touched neighborhood and the other hard hit neighborhoods.