stormswept in yonkers

I've been absent from this site the past week, because Hurricane Sandy knocked out my internet connection for most of that time.
I live in Yonkers, NY, just north of the Big Apple. Our area was hit much less severely than many. The only building damage was due to falling trees. In my own house, we lost power. For about fifteen seconds. We never lost water, and as for internet/cable...well, since just this month i wrote an article about how occasionally disconnecting from modern media would be incredibly healthy for the average human, i can't very well complain when that very thing happens accidentally.
I was actually looking forward to the storm. Of course i didn't want anyone to suffer, but...one of the most beautiful experiences of my life occurred inside a small hurricane that did no appreciable damage to anyone's life, limb, or lodging. But when it finally came, Sandy for me was a bit of a letdown. There was talk of a thirty-six hour deluge. It was my intent to go out in the worst of it, if i could. I've only ever experienced 60mph winds once before, on top of Mt. Washington...an experience that was also one of the most beautiful of my life. When the storm finally hit, i figured i'd give it a few hours to build to its pitch. But the winds i was waiting for never came, at least to my ear. Seeing the damage in the following days, i may have underestimated the sounds. Not that it wasn't a bit frightening - i live in a 140 year-old wooden building, and it was disconcerting to feel it sway. I fantasized about its collapsing...what i would do to save my most important stuff, and the heroics that might be required of me to help others...
But after just a few hours, i realized the moment had passed, and that the storm was dying. I thought i still had a chance, as i assumed from all the media alerts that we were in the eye now, and more of the worst was on the way. But no. A new day dawned, and the storm was no more.
I hadn't bought into all the media crisis anticipation, because i know their responsibility is to deal with worst-case scenarios, and it's not often that a weather event lives up to the alarmist hype. I bought an extra little box of granola bars, that's about it. Of course, i knew i had the protection of living in an enormous house with people who were not nearly so unconcerned. My landlady bought ten-gallon bins for every bathroom, so we would have water for flushing. And the food/water supplies...let's not even talk about grocery stores' profit margins in times like these.
In the days following the storm though, the evidence of the storm's ferocity was undeniable. Our neighbor's house (the same one that had the knifing i wrote about) had a falling tree enter their kitchen. I saw one exposed root system that had to be fifteen feet across. Another tree collapsed onto a three-story house, bending the edge of the roof...yet through some fluke of physics, didn't crush the room underneath. One imagines a person having been in that room, missing death by the slimmest vagary of chance. One imagines them as they suddenly hear one of the loudest, closest noises of their life, then looking dumbfounded out an unbroken window at the ten-ton tree that's leaning against the house.
Out on Broadway, several cars were CRUSHED. Just completely crushed. Something to think about the next time you pick a parking spot.
I finally drove into Manhattan a few days ago, and it's a little awesome...police directing traffic at every unlit light...a hospital working on emergency power...
I have at least one friend on the Jersey shore who lost his home entirely.
It's a shame that only in times of disaster, do modern humans become a little more...human. A little less self-important. A little less cruel.
That's all i gots to say.