Christina Hernandez Huntington Station

Hurricane Sandy has affected me and others this past week but many didn’t believe it would be that bad. It was the first and worst hurricane I had experienced on Long Island. When I heard that we were going to have a hurricane I thought it was going to be another tropical storm like hurricane Irene from last year, therefore, I didn’t prepare anything. I did charge all of my electronics because I knew that I was going to lose my power. My neighbors and I helped each other get through the hurricane while at the same time the storm caused arguments among my families. I tried my best to work together. The hurricane destroyed many families, homes, and jobs. Most people on Long Island were out of jobs because they didn’t have power and some still don’t have jobs now. Before the storm I was just doing what I usually do, wasn’t too worried about the hurricane at all. I started drawing and doing my homework thinking that we were going to be going to school on a regular day. Since I wasn’t working that weekend I went bowling with my friends till 2am. My mom was telling me not to go because she said the hurricane was coming but I wanted to enjoy myself with my friends. I didn’t know when I was going to see them again if the hurricane happened. Sundays are family days and I started preparing food to watch the walking dead. That same night the school sent us an email saying that we won’t have school on Monday or Tuesday. I was excited because I finally got a little break from school. Just like most people, I also didn’t believe that it was going to be a bad storm, just a lot of rain because Long Island rarely has hurricanes. When I woke up in the morning it was really quiet and thought that the storm stopped but it was still raining and all of the leaves were everywhere. On Monday the storm was getting worse, it was raining and the winds were getting strong, about 75mph. My driveway was starting to flood and my lights were going on and off. At 6pm my power was shut down completely. I already had candles in my room but couldn’t find any matches to light them up. I tried to go to bed early since the dark makes me tired but I was afraid to go to sleep because I thought a tree in my backyard was going to fall into my room. When the storm calmed down I went for a walk with my cousins in my neighborhood in Long Island. No one had electricity. Almost all the cable wires were on the street. A lot of the trees were on houses, cars, and streets. It almost looked like a forest. I only had one tree in my backyard but a big branch broke and went into my neighbor’s house. We can’t fix it because we don’t have power yet. I went over to my cousin’s house to see how they were doing. Both of my cousins didn’t have power but at least they had gas for hot water and a stove to cook food. My next-door neighbor went to his in laws house in queens before the hurricane because they knew they were going to lose power. As days passed by they came back home because they got into a fight with their in laws. They took one of their friends’ generators from queens. They offered us a wire from the generator to charge our phones but we said no because the neighbor across the street had twins that were a month old and we felt bad because they didn’t have power or heat. We didn’t know what was going on in the world because we couldn’t watch the news. Everyone in my house went to my cousin Rachel's house because they always had food but my other cousin Jocelyn was mad at us because we didn’t visit them as much. We didn’t visit them as much because they always had a lot of company over. We went one day because we felt bad but they never opened the door for us. They were mad at us and we eventually stopped talking to each other. I was really anxious to listen to the news because I wanted to know what was going on. I’ve heard scary stories about people losing their homes and businesses meanwhile I just lost my power and that’s why I wasn’t complaining about it because there were other people that has had worse problems then just electricity. Since I don’t have power or hot water I’ve been taking really cold showers. After my cold showers I got headaches and felt numb. It was really boring because I didn’t work or go to school the entire week. I didn’t want to drive to places because of the gas situation we had. The lines were long and were running out of gas. All we’ve been doing at night was staring at each other and talking. We tried playing Uno in the dark with a couple of candles but it wasn’t as fun because we couldn’t see the cards. We didn’t have any food because everything was getting ruined. My mom put the milk outside because it was as cold as the fridge and it wouldn't get ruined. The only thing I ate all week was bread and water, which made me have painful stomachaches. I tried to eat our cold leftover foods but it didn't taste good. I couldn’t go out to eat because everything was closed and they didn’t have power. I felt like I was going to die with no food and I was getting tired of eating bread. My mom tried barbecuing a frozen pizza we had. It tasted weird but it was the only hot food that we could eat. When the stores were starting to reopen again I went to dunkin donuts but they only had one thing to eat which was a whole grain bagel with eggs and whatever they had was what we had to eat. I waited about half an hour on the line for something I didn’t even want to eat but I got it anyways because I was really hungry and desperate for food. After eating their food I got sick and felt nauseous. I couldn’t go out of town because we were running out of gas and there were no gas stations that had electricity. When a week passed by panera bread across the street from my house had opened and it was the only real food I ate all week long. The food was amazing and I felt like I haven't ate in weeks. My friend and cousin that lives with me recently moved from Atlanta this summer and couldn't stand being at the house with no electricity so they decided to go to someone else's house that had power. My cousins car got ruined in the rain. Because water got into his car, he had to leave it at the mechanics. I gotten used to not having power from hurricane Irene. We lost power for a week and lost power for 9 days during hurricane sandy. There were a lot of people complaining about not having power and nothing to do. People were going crazy not having gas and food. Clearly hurricane Sandy has had a bad impact on the Eastern side of the U.S. Most people believed that the hurricane wasn't going to be as bad because hurricane Irene didn't destroy or mess up most peoples homes. The worst thing that hurricane Irene did was lose power for most of us but hurricane Sandy was the opposite and has been one of the worst storms Long Island has ever had in over 100 years. I learned that you can get through by working and helping each other instead of fighting. Since I had nothing to do I walked around my town and noticed that people were fighting and going crazy, some even thought that the world was going to end. I was pretty calm the whole time because I didn't have school, work, and didn't have to be anywhere. I believe that the next time there is a hurricane coming most people will prepare for it including myself by preparing foods that don't get ruined, getting batteries, flashlights, more blankets, candles, and water bottles.