Hoboken after Sandy
A couple of days after Sandy passed through, the water that had inundated Hoboken, New Jersey, along with the storm’s surge, was still waist-deep in much of the city. By Thursday, many of the streets had dried, but walk a few blocks inland and you begin to realize how dire the situation still is. Alongside City Hall, National Guard troops muster the vehicles they had used to evacuate those still trapped in their homes. Around the corner, in front of City Hall, a grease board scrawled over with dry-erase markers delivers simple, clear emergency information in the most effective way possible for a citizenry that still has no electricity:
Tap water is safe to drink.
Shelter locations: Wallace School, St. Peter & Paul, St. Matthew’s.
Do not use stove to heat homes.
Donations needed.
A few blocks further west, puddles grow into pools, and the streets and sidewalks are increasingly caked in a pungent muck. This lower part of town is where the water from Sandy’s surge had become trapped, turning Hoboken into what Mayor Dawn Zimmer termed “a bathtub.” Because the highest part of town is so close to the Hudson River, and the city’s terrain slopes lower as its distance from the river increases, once the surge breached the waterfront, the water had no place to drain.
Further downhill, Renee Policastro is inspecting one of the larger pools to persist after the storm. Policastro was born in Hoboken, and owns Marie’s Bakery, a business her parents had bought and which has been in the family for about seventy years. In all her time in the city, through all of the floods caused by Hoboken’s sloping topography, she had never seen anything like the damage caused by Sandy. The waves, she said, rolled down the street as if they were “at the beach,” filling the western part of the town immediately. Policastro’s bakery escaped significant damage—though she did point out what she suspects to have been some minor attempts at looting.
Meanwhile, Tom Hamilton and Allen Rickard were up at the waterfront, trying to get a cell-phone signal to arrange transportation to their family homes in Massachusetts. Unlike those who were evacuated by the National Guard, their apartment is inhabitable. But they work across the river, in New York, at Seven World Trade Center, which had also flooded and was without electricity. Unable to work there, or from home in Hoboken, where there was no power, either, they’ve decided to leave the city for a while. So, too, they report, have almost all of their friends. It will be a quieter city for a while.
Hoboken still needs food and, without power or heat, there will be cold nights and days. No one has fully reckoned the financial cost or the damage to property.
But today, at least, was better than yesterday. On Thursday, the city’s Hudson River waterfront walkway soaked in its first significant sunshine in days, and by 8 A.M. today it had accumulated children, dogs, and joggers as well. It was the first time many had been outside in days. One young family strolled north along the walkway’s promenade, the son racing out in front to declare his destination: he was bound for the park. His father reined him in, explaining that he couldn’t go there.
“Why?”
“Because there is no park today.”
The park still stood, even if it wasn’t open. But it was only an exaggeration, not a lie. Location and timing have mattered a great deal in Hoboken this week. On much of Hoboken’s waterfront, there was debris, but little visible damage from the storm. Had the child’s favorite park been on the west side of town, one day earlier, there really would have been “no park today,” or much else.
Photograph by Michael Guerriero.
Further downhill, Renee Policastro is inspecting one of the larger pools to persist after the storm. Policastro was born in Hoboken, and owns Marie’s Bakery, a business her parents had bought and which has been in the family for about seventy years. In all her time in the city, through all of the floods caused by Hoboken’s sloping topography, she had never seen anything like the damage caused by Sandy. The waves, she said, rolled down the street as if they were “at the beach,” filling the western part of the town immediately. Policastro’s bakery escaped significant damage—though she did point out what she suspects to have been some minor attempts at looting.
Meanwhile, Tom Hamilton and Allen Rickard were up at the waterfront, trying to get a cell-phone signal to arrange transportation to their family homes in Massachusetts. Unlike those who were evacuated by the National Guard, their apartment is inhabitable. But they work across the river, in New York, at Seven World Trade Center, which had also flooded and was without electricity. Unable to work there, or from home in Hoboken, where there was no power, either, they’ve decided to leave the city for a while. So, too, they report, have almost all of their friends. It will be a quieter city for a while.
Hoboken still needs food and, without power or heat, there will be cold nights and days. No one has fully reckoned the financial cost or the damage to property.
But today, at least, was better than yesterday. On Thursday, the city’s Hudson River waterfront walkway soaked in its first significant sunshine in days, and by 8 A.M. today it had accumulated children, dogs, and joggers as well. It was the first time many had been outside in days. One young family strolled north along the walkway’s promenade, the son racing out in front to declare his destination: he was bound for the park. His father reined him in, explaining that he couldn’t go there.
“Why?”
“Because there is no park today.”
The park still stood, even if it wasn’t open. But it was only an exaggeration, not a lie. Location and timing have mattered a great deal in Hoboken this week. On much of Hoboken’s waterfront, there was debris, but little visible damage from the storm. Had the child’s favorite park been on the west side of town, one day earlier, there really would have been “no park today,” or much else.
Photograph by Michael Guerriero.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/11/hoboken-after-sandy.html?printable=true#ixzz2B9Q7bd3a
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