hurricane sandy

We were deployed by the American Red Cross on October 30 to assist with the response to the storm.
We drove and on our way there we saw Sandy's far reaching effects, 2 feet of snow in the mountains of West Virginia and Maryland.
When we stopped to get gas just over the Pennsylvania New Jersey line there was about a 1.5 hour wait as everyone was there to fill up their cars, trucks, and fuel cans for their generators.
The workers who were managing traffic and pumping gas were ammused when they got Halloween candy from us while we waited.

We reported to the headquarters for the New Jersey response.
Things there were typically chaotic but we signed in and stood by to find out what we would be doing.

Our first assignment was to help deliver food and other relief supplies to shelters in Hoboken, NJ.

Our first couple of nights we were housed in a very nice hotel across the Hudson river from Manhattan.
It would have been a lot better if it had electricity for registration, light, heat, and elevators.
Water in the basement and first floor had destroyed all the utilities.
The view was terrific and considering what they had to work with it was great.

We then were assigned to help set up and staff overnight accommodation in a middle school in Oceanport NJ.
Near there we saw these sailboats piled on the shore and downed power poles.
It was our first look at the effect of wind from the storm.

We arrived and were greeted by local emergency responders who had set up a great feeding and warming station for area residents but needed our help since they had no provision for handling overnight guests.
There were a couple dozen the first night and the total grew steadily over the next few days.
Ultimately it grew to about 70 folks.

We made the local news too.
Late one evening a few days later we were redeployed to a shelter in Burlington NJ where they needed help staffing their overnight shift.
Several hundred folks were there with their cots in an indoor soccer field and a cafeteria capable of feeding them all.
We were working 12 hour night time shifts so I only have this picture of two of the local workers trying to solve one of my rope puzzles.

When we managed to find better housing for many of our guests the shelter was shut down so it could be used by the church that owned the facility.
Anyone who was still there was transfered to other shelters so we caught up with some of them when we got to our next assignment at Monmouth Park raceway.
I didn't get any pictures but here are some from the Red Cross web site.
The last one is Mr Peace who is blind but had a really upbeat attitude to the whole endeavor.

Originally the folks who had been displaced were housed in giant tents but by the time we arrived they had been moved to the grandstand and we took up residence in the tents.