How Sandy Hit Rockaway

TODAY marks the six month anniversary of Hurricane Sandy. Six months on and some people are STILL waiting for power, STILL living in hotels, STILL trying to get back to work, STILL waiting for the A train to run again, STILL trying to remove the mould, STILL living in below health standard housing, STILL trying to rebuild, STILL waiting for a boardwalk and STILL trying to recover. 

With Summer approaching, Rockaway is still needing help to revive it’s community. 

Iris Wall sits on the concrete pylons awaiting a new boardwalk. Visit her online shop, Rkwy Relief to purchase some of her beautiful photographic prints as gifts to raise money for local Rockaway organisations. 

April 18 - 21, 2013 
Some of my stories will be on exhibit as part of the Sandy Storyline Storyscapes showcase at TriBeCa Film Festival this week. If you’re in NYC, Come by and listen to the stories of our resilient neighbours.
RSVP is FREE at www.sandystoryline.com/attend

Week 21

Beverley Penn and her husband have been living in the Garden Inn Suites Hotel in Jamaica, Queens (right by JFK) for three months now. Tonight, they are going to sleep in their new apartment. Finally back in Far Rockaway. 

The past five months have been difficult to say the least. Beverley suffers from Hypertension and Diabetes. There is no kitchen in her hotel suite and the hotel is miles from any kind of healthy cuisine. 

“How have you been surviving?” I ask her. “I been eatin’ a lotta salad!” she says with a incredulous eyes. 

Beverley’s journey to find a new home and get life back together for her family has been a maze of frustrating phone calls and paperwork. On a daily basis, she carries around a pile of paperwork, six inches thick, just so she has all the documents she needs for any given meeting for any different aid organisation and caseworker. It has become a full time job and she wonders about all the thousands of other people affected that don’t have the same time or determination. 

Beverley is happy to finally be moving into a new home of her own. However, she says that it will never be the same. Everything in it will be brand new. 

With tears streaming down her face, she explains, “There are no memories. There are no photographs of my family. There are no things from our history in there. That’s the saddest part of all.”

There are good people in the world and some not so good people, but upon meeting the Epifanio family in Bell Harbor, you understand that there are just some down right phenomenal people.

Jim Epifanio left his job as a transmission mechanic in the Bronx over 12 months ago to care for his 92 year old father, Joe. A war veteran and ex New York City Police man. He required 24 hr care. Jim’s mother, Mary lives with them also. Joe passed away just three weeks ago.

Jim’s wife, Denise teaches special needs children, but due to New York City Public School cut backs, she no longer has work. However, Denise’ mother, Anna, lives with them also. Anna had a stroke three years ago and suffers from dementia and alzheimer’s. Anna also needs 24hr care.

The light of the family is their 17year old son Ryan, who was born with Cerebral Palsy. Although he cannot walk or communicate with words, Ryan’s gentle and happy demeanor is what holds this entire family together. Ryan also needs constant care.

During Hurricane Sandy, the Epifanio family watched the water swallow up their basement apartment, where Jim used to sleep. Situated on Beach 121st St, Denise recalls being terrified, seeing the fires from the burning homes on Beach 130th st to her left and the flames engulfing an entire block on Rockaway Beach Blvd to her right.

After watching the water rise and losing all power, Jim remembers making tough decisions on how to get the family out of the house across the flood waters and the hierarchy of who needed to be saved first. Imagine having to make that decision.

The water finally stopped upon reaching their front step and luckily there was no need to swim out. However, the family had lost both their cars, their downstairs apartment, a wheelchair lift for Ryan to get in and out of the house and the other lift for the car and all power to run medical equipment for Joe. The fuel shortage for over a week also made it almost impossible to run their generator.

Fortunately, in the following weeks, Joe and Mary were moved to an aged care facility in Brooklyn until the power returned and a team of incredible volunteers built a new wheelchair ramp for Ryan and helped gut out the basement apartment and garage.

Three months on and all back under the same roof, (except for old Joe, RIP.) Jim and Denise are putting their lives back together. Jim is rebuilding the basement apartment. They just bought a new car. Ryan is back at school. Denise is looking to go back to work during the day and Jim is looking for local night shift work so that there is always one of them in the house to care for the family.

“When do you sleep?” I asked Jim. “When we can,” he replied.

I could continue on for pages and pages about how this family survives and works through all their adversities. However, what strikes me most is their positive attitude. The Epifanio’s are a beautiful family. Loving, cheerful and incredibly welcoming. They even host a wounded soldier in their home for a week during the annual Rockaway Wounded Warrior event. We can all learn something from their strength and openness. I am a better person for having met them.

Week 15

74 year old Hazel Beckett lives alone on Beach 69th st. A retired nurse from Jamaica, she spent the night of Hurricane Sandy with her brother who lives on higher ground. “The place was all topsy-turvy!” she explains upon arriving home to find her basement apartment completely underwater with her freezer and washer/dryer turned on it’s head. The water rose a foot up into her first floor.
She recently had a new heating system installed in her home of 37 years. In the weeks without heat, Hazel would put red bricks on her stove on a low flame 24 hours a day to heat her house.
Hazel has called out to a number of aid organizations and is currently awaiting volunteers to help remove the wooden floors of the first level of her home as it has now been enveloped by black mould.

Just last week, Valerie was given a new bed by a kind neighbour. For the previous 11 weeks since the flooding, she has been sleeping on blankets on a linoleum tile floor. She lives in public housing and has developed some serious respiratory problems from the mould that has set in. NYCHA keep promising to move the ground floor residents, but in the past three months they have only seen a representative once.

As I walk into the public housing block at 54-22 Beach Channel Drive, the smell of mould is overwhelming. 

Rob lives on the ground floor where the water came up through the floor after filling the basement. He and his roommates need to continually scrub the mould away as it resurfaces every 4 to 5 days. The tap water is brown and contaminated. They’ve been told to boil it. 

NYCHA has been promising to move hundreds of ground floor housing residents since the start of December. Three months on, no one has been moved. 

When you have lost your only source of income, and insurance or FEMA does not cover your loss, how are you expected to survive?… Let alone re build?

Some of the hardest hit by Hurricane Sandy are the small businesses. Driving along the Rockaway peninsula, you will notice more shutters than ‘Open’ signs. After four to eight feet of water swept through houses and businesses two and a half months ago, most proprietors still aren’t able to get back up and running. 

Phil Cicia owns four shop fronts along Rockaway Beach Blvd between Beach 87th and Beach 88th st. One space is his general store and another he houses his beer distribution for the bars, restaurants and hotels in the area. He rents the third to a check cashing business and the fourth to a H&R Block. He’s been there for 23 years. 

Phil’s commercial insurance will not cover the flood damage, however, the cost of the flood option on his policy over the last 23 years would far out weigh the cost of the damage caused. 

The cost to restore the shop’s fittings alone will be up to $350,000. The cost to replace all the merchandise destroyed will be up to $250,000. Nothing is salvageable, except for the $1.60 he can redeem per recyclable beer bottle. This estimate does not include his other two store fronts, nor his forklift or truck that was destroyed also. He fortunately has a van left for transportation. 

Currently, some of the larger beer companies refuse to supply Phil with stock to sell out of his current situation until the invoices for the damaged stock is paid. He has a friend in Long Island City supplying him in the interim so he can get back on his feet. However, business is more than slow. Most of his customers are either not yet open for business, or they have simply left the area. 

With next to no business coming in, he still needs to gut and rebuild all four properties and also pay his four employees. 

Phil is hoping that the 7million beach goers from Brooklyn and Manhattan will return in the Spring and Summer months to help restore his business. 

I stood aghast.

For the first time since Hurricane Sandy, I went to Breezy Point. I struggle to find words.

Photographs and video just don’t do any justice to the overwhelming feeling of loss you have when standing amongst the burned out homes. These were peoples ‘homes!’ A place of security, safety and rest. The comfort of ‘coming home’ is completely lost to these people. These residents have salvaged what they can and have taken up nomadic lives amongst family, friends and hotels. 

The authorities have blockaded the entrance to the whole area to prevent looters. ( Yes, looters. ) So, as a non resident, I was unable to enter until I was brought in by Steve Stathis from the Gray Beards organisation. 

It’s been three months since the storm and less than 15 percent of Breezy’s residents of the houses that are still standing, have moved back. The water is still contaminated. You cannot shower in it, let alone drink it. 

Since 2001, The Gray Beards have been a staple part of the Rockaway community. After many local residents lost their lives, and were affected by the tragedies of September 11 and the American Airline flight #587 crash, a local basketball team decided that it was time to form a not for profit to provide a local support network. 

Two days ago, I had the privilege to spend the day with Steve Stathis, the President of The Gray Beards. Steve and his son Christian are also the owners of Boarders Surf Shop, which has been a Rockaway institution since 2004. Both of the stores were completely destroyed in the storm.  

Since Sandy, the role of The Gray Beards, has been critical. Managing donations and getting the funds directly to those that most need it has almost become a full time job. As FEMA and insurance companies deny many claims in the area, The Gray Beards have become the last resort in a desperate situation for a lot of people. 

As I stood there in the Gray Beards, office, Steve reads through letter after letter of badly affected residents asking for help. It’s incredibly emotional as he tells me about families that they have helped and also those that they cannot help enough. 

Steve has an incredible connection with the people of Rockaway, as you might imagine. But seeing his rapport first hand was indeed something special. I jumped in his truck and went along with him to hand deliver a donation cheque to residents Beth and Keone. The front of their beautiful self designed bungalow on B87th st looks untouched… until they invited me inside. I was not prepared for what I saw. All that remains is a microwave and a few cupboards mounted 5 feet up on the wall. There is barely a floor and just exposed wooden beams. 

Beth & Keone spent the night of the storm, 12 weeks ago, huddled on the second floor of their neighbours house as they watched water envelope their home. They have since been moving from hotel to hotel all over New York whilst they spend their only savings on trying to rebuild their home. Their insurance will eventually cover the damage to their main living bungalow, however with millions of people affected, waiting for the insurance companies to release funds could be longer than the savings will last. 

… Please.