Floods, Katrina and 9/11
I think Newsday this morning said it best:
The first few pages were filled with before & after pix of Sunday’s storm and Monday’s cleanup.
We were very fortunate and didn’t flood this time… Ironically, we flooded last weekend in a quick, surprise flash storm. Maybe an inch or so in the basement, which had receded by the time I went down Saturday morning to do a bit of work in my “office.” Which was in the still-dry corner, thankfully.
So this weekend I dove into just-in-case mode. Not preventive tactics…because if Irene hit Queens, there’s not much we could do about it. More like pre-emptive: Got everything off the floor, lugged what we could upstairs, boosted the couch onto a few sturdy chairs, and hoped for the best.
Made a silly Saturday morning trip to Home Depot…way too late, crazy lines, walked right out. Hit the “Met” grocery store for water and food that would last a few days if the power went out. (The Lucky Charms were a hurricane treat.)
Then we waited. And waited. Eerily quiet evening until about 10:30 PM ET when the wind and rain really kicked up. The storm would last almost exactly 24 hours.
I couldn’t sleep much. Woke up periodically Sunday morning — 2 am, 4 am, 6 am — and checked the back community driveway. Still no flooding. Then I emptied the various rain-catching-receptacles scattered around my porch, which had sprung a few new leaks in the roof. Gotta get that fixed this fall.
But in the end: no floods, no major damage to any houses or cars in the neighborhood. We walked around last night a bit, and one block was still cordoned off with police tape. A large tree limb had fallen across the street, lying across one car and barely touching the car on the other side. Oddly, it looks like that first car is OK — no broken glass or major dents.
Across much of the East Coast, we said “whew” and put the storm behind us. But some weren’t so lucky. My thoughts go out those who lost family and homes up and down the coast. Folks in the Catskills. And the Vermonters.
I watched news clips of homeowners trudging knee-deep through water in their basements and first floors. And I remember how frustrating and exhausting that can be — dragging out the rugs, throwing away what’s been destroyed, power-drying the walls. In our worst basement flood, bailing out the basement’s 6 inches of rain and dirt and muck, I wanted to cry, to yell, and most of all, to move. But then I remembered the Katrina victims and quickly stopped feeling sorry for my little old self. I still had a home.
So last week’s story in the NYT about “The Bicycle Diaries: One New Yorker’s Journey Through 9/11” was especially timely for lots of reasons:
Here is what Mr. Goodman wrote in his “Bicycle Diaries” entry of Oct. 1, 2001, trying to capture the difference between the nationwide feeling on 9/11 and the special New York feeling: “I don’t doubt everyone in America has been affected. I know they have been, and I certainly don’t mean to diminish that. But it’s our city that was grievously wounded.”
Flash forward to a few weeks ago, and a bit of table-turning. Mr. Goodman was talking to a new acquaintance in New Orleans, and the subject of Katrina came up. “I said out loud, ‘Well, I guess it’s sort of like our 9/11,’ ” he recalled. “And I could see the anger in her eyes. She said, ‘We lost 80 percent of our city.’ She as much as said there’s no comparison.”
