Jenna Basile, Glen Cove

We had been hearing for at least a week before Hurricane Sandy hit just how serious it was going to be. I don’t think anyone wanted to believe what they were hearing until Monday night it became a reality. The winds were whipping causing trees to fall when suddenly we lost power. This was just the start in a long journey of which we were going to learn how to adapt. Saturday afternoon my family and I began to take small steps to begin planning for Hurricane Sandy. I began by filling my car up with a full tank of gas while my Dad started filling all of our gas cans. When Sunday rolled around I started to put fresh batteries in all of our flash lights, just in case. We all thought we were over reacting and this couldn’t be hitting as hard as the news had been saying. So Sunday night we took a ride down to Prybil’s Beach to see how high the tides were really going to come up, the beach gates were locked. This was probably the moment my family and I realized Hurricane Sandy going to do some damage. Monday the skies had become very cloudy and the winds very strong. It was just around dinner time that our lights flickered a few times until finally we lost power. This is when the roaring of the generators began throughout my neighborhood. After a few hours of running on a generator, the temperature in my house began dropping. Fortunately we had firewood and put the fire place on for the first of many nights. For the next seven nights we were going to learn how to adapt. Part of our adaption was going to be waiting on gas lines for hours to power our generator. The lines were miles away from the stations, and the crowds were rowdy; it was by far the craziest thing I have ever seen. People slept in their cars overnight waiting on the gas tankers to arrive, cops surrounded the gas stations patrolling the incredible lines. Although we had our generator hooked up to our television our cable lines were still down, we felt very unconnected not being able to watch the news. We had a small radio but that did allow us to get the full effect of what was happening around us. Each day my Grandfather would call from Florida to give us an update on what he heard on the news. To occupy our time at night my family and I watched a few movies and played some board games. This helped pass sometime for us and we were able to get a couple of good laughs. Towards the last few days of not having power we became a little frustrated that most of the streets around us had lights. Everyday my Grandfather would call us from Florida to give us an update on what he heard on the news. Furthermore, after waiting in numerous gas lines, and lighting many fires we finally got power back. We then lent our generator to a friend who was still without power. For those seven nights we were able to realize how much we really do take for granted. The week before we able to get gas within five minutes, and now we were lucky if we got gas within five hours. It was almost like now we were able to reconnect with the world, turning on the television and being able to see the devastation across Long Island. Simply turning the thermostat on and heat going on, or even flipping a light switch and a light turning on were just a few things we were going to appreciate a lot more. Hurricane Sandy was a life changing event for my family and I. Luckily we were able to adapt to the major changes. We were very fortunate to only have lost our lights; others unfortunately lost their homes, cars, or even loved ones. In summation, we were able to take a valuable lesson away from this storm, never to anything for granted.