Long Island aid: A personal post-Sandy account

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.

Soon after we arrive at the drop-off, many other buses and u-hauls arrive. A supply chain is organized, and items start being thrown off the trucks. I’m literally hit by one as I squeeze by. It’s scary, and I’m happy to be done unloading our trailer.

Unforgettable moment: During the chaos of the unloading, a woman with several grocery bags — some paper, torn from their weight — comes to our trailer. “What do you need?” I ask her. I’m holding several bags of household items. As she looks at the bags I say “These are household items.” “I don’t need household items!” she cries; “I don’t have a house! Cat food, do you have any cat food?” I assure her that yes, we do, let me show her where it is. She looks dazed, and isn’t making eye contact. “I just need some cat food, but I don’t want to take too much! There are other people here, they all need things!”

I assure her that she needs things also, and she can take all the cat food she needs. “Litter, do you have litter? I don’t want to take too much!” As she places a heavy container of cat litter into her paper bag, it tears more.

“Please,” I say, “Let me find you a bag, we have bags in the trailer.” “No,” she says, “I’m alright, I’ll be alright.” I ask her if she needs anything else, to please take a moment, to look into my eyes, to see that we are here for her. She quickly scans the trailer, then says “I have enough, besides, this is all I can carry.”

I imagine that this is what it feels like to be in a war zone.

After we unload the trailer, we drive to where the animal shelter was located. Block after block of devastation and people emptying their homes onto the sidewalks. When we get to the shelter, we learn that all the animals are at another location and that is where they are accepting donations. We see that every item in the shelter — food, electronics, equipment, cages — is outside on what was the side yard, and totally useless or destroyed. The windows are boarded up, and workers look incredibly tired. We leave to go to my brother’s home.

The block my brother lives on is one of the highest above sea level on Long Beach, about nine feet. What this means is that only his first floor was flooded, with about two feet of salt water. Fortunately, he has no basement, only a garage and a shed. It also means that his block is one of the more intact-looking, if you don’t count the three houses a bit farther down from him that burned to the ground during the storm.

So I wasn’t really prepared for what things would be like inside. Furniture and bedding piled everywhere. Carpets had already been pulled up — they were outside, sopping, on what was left of their beautifully-landscaped yard. Inside, that bad smell of mold and mildew, and the tell-tale whitish powder on every surface. All the furniture will have to be replaced, all the electronics. The drywall will have to be knocked out, insulation removed, all the floors torn out. Several of them had just been laid three weeks ago, in a long-overdue renovation. A simple consolation: the newly repaired ceiling hadn’t leaked during the storm.

Mike and I went from room to room, doing whatever small things we could, while my brother and sister-in-law experienced the full measure of what they have lost. It is tragic. A home is so much more than a collection of ‘stuff’. It is shelter, and memories, and safety. For the foreseeable future, they have lost all of that, and more. I don’t know how they are bearing it. And the same story is playing over and over again on every street, in every neighborhood affected by the storm. It’s inconceivable.

And yet. The people. The grace of these people. In the chaos and the scare, they are focused, yet polite. People are helping each other. Caring for each other. Patiently waiting in line. Pulling together. Hunkering down. Grateful. This was the magnificent part of today, experiencing these people, this grace. We gave every single thing away that we had brought to Long Beach, and when we got to my brother’s I thought “What was I thinking? They’re disaster victims too! We could have at least saved some garbage bags!” Then I remembered why we didn’t: my brother and sister-in-law insisted that they had weathered the storm much better than many, and others would need these things more. Psychologists might call this denial. I call this the best of humanity: selfless compassion.

Great Barrington, Massachusetts, I couldn’t be prouder to represent us today. I made sure to tell everyone where we were from, and that we are here. If I had any doubts that our ‘little’ trailer was just a drop in a very big bucket of need, those doubts were erased by seeing that every act does make a difference. And here, on Long Beach, in the seeming absence of rescue, even the smallest acts of assistance are needed.

So we’ll go again next week, maybe with a bigger trailer. We’ll go earlier and stay longer, so we can help more. And maybe some of you will go along with us. The garage door will be open…

With Love and Blessings,

Jan and crew

This afternoon, Jan emailed the following on what is needed if you’re available:

Hi, all —

The donations continue to arrive, we are bringing soup down tomorrow, and the plan is to take the food trailer down and serve hot meals for two days next week. More on that as we go.

Right now, what is most needed on Long Beach are drivers to help people get to the polling booths tomorrow. The situation is that polls are open in different neighborhoods, but people without gasoline, the elderly and others may be unable to get to the polling places because of no transportation. Also, there will be no mail delivery to Long Beach for the foreseeable future. Long Beach residents must pick up their mail in Garden City, a town about 10 miles away.

If you are feeling the need to do something direct and immediate, please consider offering your service as a driver. What you will need: 1) Your car, hopefully one that is very good on gas mileage. 2) As close to a full tank of gas as possible when you get close to Long Island. I can let you know our experience traveling down on Sunday and where we got our tanks topped off before heading in. 3) An extra gas can with several gallons of gas. Long Beach is about 150 miles from South County, mostly highway driving. You can definitely get there and back without worrying about filling up down there, with a little planning.

My suggestion is that, should you choose to go, you check out the Long Beach Patch, which is a community information blog site. Here you can see the needs, and post something about a pick-up spot for people needing drivers. I will be happy to suggest some easy access spots for you down there.

For more information on how to help, visit www.longbeachny.gov.

Blessings, and please share with your networks.

Jan