Something Wicked This Way Comes....

It has been almost six months since the tidal storm surge of Super Storm Sandy swept across our small island community during the evening of Monday, October 29, 2012, destroying everything in its path.

In the space of but a few hours, the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Jamaica Bay had risen and transformed the vibrant 21^st century town of Broad Channel into that of an early 1800’s coastal  village lacking power, communication, transportation, fuel, sanitation, food, habitable living space, churches or schools.

Broad Channel residents spent the night huddled in what dry space they could find, if any, in their homes, watching the waters rise below a darkened sky intermittently filled with the light of exploding electrical transformers and short circuited power lines.

The worst was yet to come.

As the sun rose on the morning of Tuesday, October 30^th, residents slowly emerged from their homes and apartments and slowly surveyed the devastation that surrounded them. 

Almost without exception, each individual’s face was etched with the strain of complete disbelief and shock, eyes staring blankly into the distance, bereft of emotion as if the life had been sucked out them.

The realization slowly dawned on all of us that not only had we suffered incredible individual losses, we had also lost what most of us hold most dear,  that which keeps us anchored to our island community – our town.

Perhaps the best thing that happened that morning was each of us stepping out amidst our neighbors and friends into the oil drenched debris and rubble of the storm’s aftermath. For it was only then that we came to realize that as bad as it was for us, there were neighbors and friends who were much worse off than we were.

A simple statement by a child that he or she was hungry resulted in neighbors digging through what was left of their homes to come up with a working barbeque.  Other neighbors quickly inspected what perishable foods could be salvaged and shared among friends and neighbors.

While sharing meals on our filthy streets we, almost unknowingly, took stock of what assets we had left among us.  

Soon houses with small generators were making morning coffee and tea and charging cell phones. Those fortunate few who managed to get a hot water heater or boiler running offered showers to anyone needing one on a 24 hours basis.  When gasoline supplies became non-existent and generators ran empty, family and friends visited us from miles away delivering much need fuel.  Some innovative souls managed to dry out their propane gas regulators and jury rig their stove tops to provide a minimum of heat in their flood damaged kitchens.  Many an evening was spent around these stoves among friends and neighbors sharing stories and tears but always ending with the question “What can we do tomorrow to make this better?”

As days turned into weeks, many of us stayed but many of our neighbors found that they could not stay in their storm ravaged homes and had to move away, yet all of us were now possessed with the singular intention of doing whatever we had to restore our town of Broad Channel.

As weeks turned into months, it made no difference who stayed or who left, everyone had to deal with the complexities of FEMA, the impersonal, slow to react and less than caring attitudes of our flood insurance companies and the reluctance on the part of our banks to disperse such funds when they finally received the checks.

Thanksgiving, Christmas 2012 were celebrated as best we could with turkey dinners at the American Legion, Santa Claus and toys for children at the VFW - perhaps more memorable than those past as each of us had the opportunity to realize just how much we had to be thankful for and buoyed with the knowledge that we were all pulling together to restore our community!

Our town’s regained sense of optimism was perhaps best displayed during March when we were informed that the Broad Channel Flood Mitigation (street raising and new bulkhead) Project for West 11^th, 12^th, and 13^th Roads would be delayed (yet again) for one year!  Our town quickly came together and, with the assistance of our politicians, quickly re-established the timeline for this project to commence this summer!

As I stated at the start of this post, it is now almost six months since that wicked witch Sandy visited our fair town and although we are imbued with a new sense of hope and rebirth, we should all be aware of the witches warning in Macbeth – “…something wicked this way comes!”

The now calm waters of our beautiful bay belies the fact that something truly wicked does loom on the horizon for our town in the form of the Biggert-Waters Act of 2012 and the new Base Flood Elevation Maps from FEMA.  

These regulations, and the accompanying exorbitant expense of raising our houses in lieu of ridiculously high flood insurance premiums, if left unchecked, could easily undo all the hard work expended thus far by our town and endanger the future viability of our community.

This danger is real and the only way we can address it is to come together as we did in the wake of Sand’s flood waters. 

The next Broad Channel Civic Association meeting will take place Thursday evening in the American Legion Hall at 7:30pm.  This meeting should be “standing room only” as it was for the initial FEMA meeting back in early November 2012 if only to show those in government that if we would not allow Sandy to destroy our town we will be damned if we will allow a piece of legislation passed without full public notice accompanied by flawed elevation maps on the part of FEMA to place a stake through the heart of Broad Channel.