Categories
Reflected

3,653 Days Later

Ten years ago, I couldn’t find any words. I’ve found a few for today.

Here’s what I remember of that day during my senior year of college: I remember our house being firmly wrapped up in the third day of party drama fallout, which quickly fell to the side. I remember waking up to ten breaking news alerts from CNN in my inbox and only being able to think “This isn’t good”. I remember ringing the doorbell to the house repeatedly after I had turned on the news in an attempt to wake everyone up. And I remember contact the Freeverse office to make sure everyone was okay.

The timing of the day – not long after I had turned 21, not long before I would graduate and get married – makes it a pretty natural chapter break between college and adulthood.

I suppose the thing that strikes me now is that I’ve had the chance to spent eight years in the city that was born out of that tragedy. It’s hard for me to fathom the ways that the city has changed before and after September 11th. I will only ever know the after, as will many of my friends who moved here long after the towers fell. This doesn’t bother me – it’s not some sort of badge or achievement I long for.

This New York is where I found myself, made my career, built up an incredible circle of friends and peers, and launched adventures I couldn’t have dreamed of while I was toiling away in college.

This New York is my New York. And I love it completely.

From The Heart Of The Village

Categories
Reflected

The Calm After The Storm

Jersey City Post-Irene (NE)

After all of the stress of yesterday, we woke up this morning and continued to stay cautious and weary until about 10AM, when the Irene was downgraded to a Tropical Storm. We went down to the 9th floor deck and then to the building lobby to survey.

Despite being in an evacuation zone and being literally on the coast of the Hudson, we found no flooding, no fallen trees or branches, no broken glass. We did not once lose power or cable service. The lobby of our building was undamaged.

Yet the more inland parts of Jersey City – not under an evacuation order – suffered widespread flooding and power outages.

There are things in life that perplex me, and this is certainly one of them. I am not going to sit here and call the storm “boring” or “overrated” because it has impacted plenty of people. As I write this, PSE&G says 375k are without power in NJ, and I know more than a few. But how a riverfront area can avoid any damage flies in the face of my internal logic.

In any case, I’m glad it’s done and over with. But now I very badly need a vacation, or a massage, or *something*.

Categories
Reflected

Dat Hurricane

I’ve received some frantic IMs and tweets from friends over the last few days about what we’re going to do about the hurricane. Allow me to document our decision making process:

At 1PM today, the Jersey City Police Department issued a mandatory evacuation for ground/first floor units in our neighborhood. We live on the 10th floor of our building – the first eight floors are a block-wide parking garage and common space for the building, then two separate towers start the actual units at floor 9.

At 3PM today, our building forwarded that order on trying to turn it into a mandatory evacuation for the entire building. They requested everyone vacate by 4PM.

Unlike the mandatory evac orders for Zone A in Manhattan (issued yesterday) or first-level apartments in Hoboken (issued this morning), this came *after* the MTA had shut down the subway, *after* the PATH had shut down, and *after* NJ Transit had shut down.

There are emergency shelters, of course, but they are neither near us nor are the buses they are running for them anywhere near us (4 stops on the light rail). Additionally the shelters are not taking pets, and Buttons’ safety and health remains one of our top concerns. (One was just announced as taking pets, opening at 5PM today – a bit late.)

Additionally, like many NYC-area residents, we don’t own a car. So driving west to some unknown destination (we don’t have any friends or family in NW New Jersey) isn’t an option.

The fear from the building (and generally from the area) is more about the flooding and potential power outages than wind damage to the building. Our windows are thick and, per the building, able to withstand high winds. (Jersey City is remarkably windy on average.) We have supplies – water, canned food, charged devices – that we prepared yesterday.

So I would emotionally prefer to have somewhere safe we could go and relax for the weekend – my stress level has been a bit high, having recently completed a week long conference that involved an earthquake. But the logical, rational side of me knows that trying to flee at this point is a losing proposition compared to sheltering-at-home.

So at home we shall stay, for better or for worse. It is not a great decision, it may not even end up being a good decision, but it is the best decision we can make given the options. And to be honest, if the primary disruption that comes from this is a blackout, I think I have ample experience.