When I wrote these, we had NO idea what was about to happen or how many neighbors, colleagues, and students would suffer. Many have yet to fully recover, structurally or emotionally.

Just last week a student mentioned working at Ruvo in Greenlawn and I sent my thanks and regards to their chef. They were quickly functional after the storm, and their daily soup, reheated over a candle warmer and with our little bbq, were the only sources for food and warmth for several days. We couldn’t drive out of the area because of the downed wires until all of us neighbors pooled money to get what was needed and pay a neighbor who worked for a utility company to get a cherry picker to reach the box and turn the power off.

We had each other, a safe structure, and are always reasonably prepared, so fortunate, but it certainly increased my empathy for others then and the victims of the increasingly frequent “super storms” and other disasters tied to climate change.