Hurricane Sandy Eleven Days Later: Coney Island Still In The Dark

Apropo my recent post on Disaster Preparation Basics, is this about the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, now eleven days after the storm:

After traveling six miles by foot and by bus to bring food home to her five children in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood, Cherry Barnett broke down in tears.

...Barnett’s apartment building...was one of thousands in the path of superstorm Sandy, which tore up the Atlantic Coast, devastating homes, flooding basements, wiping out businesses and leaving millions without light or heat...Barnett and her children endured 10 days in the dark.

The juice finally came back on three days ago

It looks like a lot of people either believed nothing really bad could happen to them and didn't prepare, or didn't prepare for anything like a couple weeks without food stores and electricity.

Down on Surf Avenue, businesses are shuttered, leaving local residents unable to get basic necessities like food, medicine, or even do laundry...

About 479,400 New York and New Jersey utility customers were still without electricity Friday, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Some 167,000 of those customers are on New York’s hard-hit Long Island, according to the Long Island Power. About 35,000 customers in New York City's boroughs of Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens were still without power...

Sandy hit on Monday, the 29th of October. Today is Friday of the following week.

Who wants to go six miles by foot and bus to get food? It isn't hard to prepare even for this level of emergency. Take a look at this, go to www.amazon.com, and spend 300 bucks. It isn't hard, and sure beats carrying water and food up the stairs. If you can find water and food.

And for all you grandparents and parents of young adults: Christmas is coming. So is Hanukkah. And Eid. Holidays and birthdays are always coming, and Amazon.com is happy to help you help them.

The longer we can take care of ourselves in an emergency, the more resources are available to those who can't. Let's take care of our communities by doing what we can to take care of ourselves and our families. Go to Amazon. Get prepared.