Corona Diary (August 3 — 9)
Like everyone, we are currently experiencing challenging times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regardless of our nationality, age, or cultural practices, social distancing has rapidly become the norm. The following is a weekly series of thoughts and experiences across five different cities and countries, in the hope of making connections and distinctions in a strange and uncertain time.
Brooklyn, New York, The United States
by Jon Gayomali
We had our worst storm of the season this week and it was supposedly the worst since Hurricane Sandy back in 2012. Hurricane Isaias was a category 1 hurricane that generated the strongest tropical cyclone-spawned tornado since Hurricane Rita in 2005. It originated from a tropical wave off the coast of Africa that was first identified by the National Hurricane Center on July 23. In the Eastern United States, more than 3 million power outages were reported with nearly half of them in New Jersey. I even had to cover for one of my coworkers as they lost power while working remotely. What was even worse was 2 days after, over 1.4 million customers were still without power. Even running in the next week, many people were still without power as trees and powerlines still lay toppled in the streets.
On August 4th, there was also an explosion in Beirut, Lebanon that killed at least 200 people and has injured around 5000 others. Videos surfaced of the disaster all over social media and have been truly terrifying. Before the explosion, there was large fire at the port of Beirut where white smoke can be seen flowing from one of the warehouses. About 30 seconds later, an explosion was set off that was so large, a mushroom cloud erupted and sent shockwaves across the city, flipping cars, shattering glass, and crumbling buildings. The explosion left the crater that is 560ft or 140m in diameter. The blast itself was equivalent to about 1500 tonnes of TNT or about 1/10th the intensity of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. Memories of September 11th were brought to mind as I remembered seeing the World Trade Center topple on TV.
