Alissa Semple
MHC 250
Professor Clyde Haberman
March 21st, 2017
Response Paper 4- Hurricane Sandy Experience

When Sandy happened, I hadn’t been worried. Living in Springfield Gardens, New York, not by any particularly daunting body of water convinced me that I would emerge from the storm unscathed. True, Springfield does border Long Island, and Valley Stream was a five minute walk from my home, but I hadn’t given it too much thought. New Yorkers have a very “everything will proceed as normal” type of attitude, a “they’re just blowing it out of proportion” temperament, and remembering Hurricane Irene, which had not affected me much, besides the brief power outage for two days, I shoved Sandy to the back of my mind and told myself it would not be such a big deal.
It was a terribly big deal. I didn’t have power for about four days. A tree fell into my neighbor’s roof. Shingles were torn off of my own roof, causing the water to leak into my living room. Our gate fell over. Sandy turned out to be a big deal after all, but my problems paled in comparison when I spoke to my best friend, who lived in Far Rockaway. Her home was been flooded. Pieces of wood had slammed into her windows at night. A tree fell on her neighbor’s car. All the water caused an asbestos flare up in her basement, so she had to temporarily locate for close to five months while her asbestos-ridden house was scoured by officials.
When I got off the phone with her, after a week of her living with her grandmother in East New York, with my lights, electricity and Wifi restored and everything in my household pretty much back to normal, I decided that I had been lucky.