Checking Out Hurricane Sandy Aftermath in Brooklyn, NY

Side of house blown or washed away

There isn’t much to add regarding Hurricane Sandy. Luckily the storm did not affect us much. Besides shaky windows and being stuck inside, the worst thing that happened to us was our building’s parking garage getting a foot of water. My car started up yesterday, so hopefully it works later without issue.

Many people we know had flooded basements, some waist high or as much as five feet!
I can’t imagine what that is like to clean up.

During the storm we did not have any loss of power however, last night it went out around 9:00pm and was back on by midnight. (The reason for this post being so late). Three hours of lost power is definitely not much to complain about.

Muddy, tree blocked street

By our place (in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn) there wasn’t much damage. We saw lots of branches from trees on the gorund and some dirt in the streets & on sidewalks. A few blocks further, the same could not be said. I heard that trees were down, blocking streets and cars were abandoned in the middle of the street. In the main shopping area, many stores were destroyed. They were flooded or had windows blown out. I can’t imagine how long it will take to clean up this mess and rebuild these areas.

I decided to tag along with my parents for a ride to check out Sheepshead Bay and Manhattan Beach. I could not believe what I saw.

See for yourself with some of the pictures I took.

Some of the flooded shops along Emmons Avenue in Sheepshead Bay:

a flooded restaurant entrance with a metal fence

This store on Sheepshead Bay Road had it’s windows blown out and the inside of the shop destroyed. See the turned over soda refrigerator and shelving making a huge mess.

Here are some photos of the Manhattan Beach area:

Paved street covered in mud

The owner of the house below told me how he had thee feet of sandbags blocking his driveway. Regardless, it took around 15 seconds for the water to rush in and flood it. The sandbags were knocked over and his garage looked like a swimming pool. He told me that luckily the first floor of his house only got about five inches of water inside.