Aftermath of Sandy

A sandy (pun inevitable), muddy mess on my favorite beach after Hurricane Sandy.  But for perspective: Hurricane Sandy barely touched Cape Cod.  The winds blew and some limbs and small trees came down, some people had power outages, rains fell intermittantly.  For me, it was a nonevent, my electricity blinked a few times which it's apt to do with any amount of wind.

I am over a mile away from the beach and perhaps high enough not to think much about flooding unless something of tsunami size arrives. Yesterday the weather was very mixed: sun, cloud, rain, temperature in the 60s.  In the early afternoon Rachel and I decided to see what damage "our" beach sustained.  After last year's glancing touch by Hurricane Irene we opined that the far end of Long Beach where we prefer to walk, might, in the next storm, be cut off and become an island.  A knob at the far end of it is normally mostly underwater at high tide. So we walked out  as far as we could and arrived at this muddy mess where a channel had been cut through the narrowest part.  It was high tide when we were there. We could see that at low tide the area would not be flooded and we could still walk out to the end -- which is not visible in the picture as it's under water but won't be at low tide. So that was the answer to our question for now. What the winter winds and storms will bring remains to be seen; it is in winter that the largest amount of erosion happens.

Walking the mile out there turned into a small adventure as we returned when it began to sprinkle  -- no problem, said we -- but then it began raining harder.  We walked fast -- faster than I usually walk. This was on damp but soft sand so walking was harder than on a firm surface.  Rachel is in great shape and walks fast, I kept up with her and was pleased to find that, although I was breathing a bit hard, I wasn't haven't any real trouble keeping pace.  Later in the evening various thigh and hip muscles told me they had been overworked; so a long hot soak soothed them and today I'm glad we had our little adventure.  We were wet, of course, when we got to the car, but happy a couple of minutes later when the sky really opened and the rain poured down. 

For us that's the end of the saga of Hurricane Sandy.  For my friends in New York City much distress continues and lies ahead.  The simple matter of transportation is stunning not to even think of all the water damage and the many needy people with no electricity, no working elevators, no safe drinking water.  An email for a NYC friend said she has experienced various transportation strikes, the Great Black Out and 9/11 and now this and she is convinced that, in times of great stress, people pull together.  That's what we always hear about the Londoners during the blitz.  NYC hasn't had that kind of stress but this is a really major one -- I think it's not Londoners or New Yorkers but people in general.  I read there is some looting but I'm sure hundreds of stories are unfolding of people helping people.  I believe most people care about others.