Editor’s Note: Psychologist Jan Seward wrote a Q&A column for Planet Waves last year. She sent this letter to us earlier this morning, to let us know just how desperate communities are in the areas hit worst by Hurricane Sandy. She joined with family members to bring a trailer of supplies to Long Island this past weekend, and is planning more trips this week. To help, email Jan at drjanseward [at] gmail [dot] com — Amanda
By Jan Seward
There are no good words for how awful things are on Long Beach after Sandy; everything you have seen on the news is still happening, and will be for weeks, months and years to come. Utter devastation; entire contents of homes, down to the boards and sheet rock, out on the sidewalks; the smell of oil, sewage, salt water and garbage coming in on the ocean air; gangs of sea birds fighting for trash; block after block after block after block after block after block after block.
No Red Cross in sight; no traffic lights. Lines of cars and people, hundreds long, waiting for their turn for 10 gallons of gasoline. The constant sound of sirens, and fire and emergency vehicles speeding everywhere, while, non-plussed, the big jets keep landing at Kennedy.
An emergency road sign announces: Food and Generator at East/West Schools. Most people will have to walk there as they have no gasoline, or have lost their cars to the flood. On every block, people are riding their bicycles or walking, all carrying water and other emergency supplies, but only in the small amounts that they can carry. I wonder how many trips like this they have been making in the last five days.
At the drop-off center, controlled chaos. It seems like the center, an ice arena, has only recently been organized to receive supplies. The arena is huge, but the donations take up only a tiny portion of it. There are bags and bags, hundreds of bags, of clothing, that volunteers are trying to keep organized. There are small areas up in the bleachers organized by section: baby supplies, cleaning supplies, juice.
The real action is up in the front of the arena, in the small, intensely crowded area were ordinarily tickets would be sold. Here is the ‘fresh food’, and blankets, and children’s clothing, and it is as crowded as it is able to be without coming to a complete standstill. It is here that I bring the bread, sandwich fixings and roast chickens we have brought down. I literally put the chickens in people’s hands, or in their bags of clothing and blankets. Many of them don’t speak English, so don’t understand when I am offering them a “fresh chicken to feed the family.” This is when I cry.