2012
The first time someone had suggested I go to therapy was three months into the fifth grade. My teacher was concerned about what I had gone through and wanted me to seek professional help to make sure I was okay. Coincidentally, that was the first and only time a teacher had called home. I ultimately never went, despite my teacher’s recommendation, and I think I’m alright. Mrs. Pearce was older and didn’t realize I was obsessed with The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Hatchet, so my experience felt more like a cool story to tell. I see how it could be concerning though. Mrs. Pearce had us share our stories the first week back at school in November.
I wasn’t zoned for my elementary school; I was there because I took a test and was placed in their Gifted and Talented Program—which in retrospect has to set a child up with some kind of superiority complex because you don’t just go your first five years of school being called “gifted and talented” and not end up pretentious—but anyway because I was the only student in my class from Midland Beach, no one had a story like mine.
On our share and tell rug, I awaited my turn, fiddling with my sneakers. I used to draw on my shoes when I was nervous, and it drove my mom absolutely insane. My white tennis shoes looked like a desk from a middle school classroom and my fingers were all knotted in my laces. When it finally got to me this was what I said: “My mom was on the phone with my aunt. She had just lost power and was going to ask my uncle to turn on the generator. We still had power so naturally my mom invited them to wait out the storm with us. When my aunt said no, I thought to myself, ‘That is ridiculous. We have power. We can make a nice cup of earl gray and fall asleep to the sound of the rain hitting the window.’ My mom hung up and proceeded to make dinner. My dad was on the couch watching TV. New York 1 News rang through my house with updates on the storm to come.
“I was in my Disney Princess themed bedroom, awaiting dinner, watching Glee, as I had been every night of that week. Suddenly, the rain came down like a wall of water and began to collect at the bottom of the stairs outside of my house. We ran out and within minutes the rain had become like water from the ocean, and it was flooding in. Noah himself could not have seen a flood like this come in. My parents ran upstairs. My mom grabbed a go bag and my dad the car keys, in hopes of escaping the flood. My mom is very good at hiding her nerves and anxiety. She went through medical school with English as her third language and a toddler and infant at home. She managed. She always managed, but there was something about her that night. It was like she was completely composed, but when you looked into her eyes, all you could see was panic. Once you saw that, you started to notice everything else.
“The way my dad’s hands were shaking. The way my dad kept going to rub the back of his neck—something he only does when he’s thinking and doesn’t know what to do. The way my brother got quiet. I don’t recall him saying anything that night. My parents ran back downstairs, almost missing the bottom steps, and as we rushed out, my downstairs neighbor accidentally slammed his door shut without the key. My mom, having made the same mistake a few times, took out her credit card and began frantically sawing away at the lock. A few minutes go by, and still nothing happens. Now the water is just two steps away from where we had been standing. I should mention, local officials warned us to evacuate. The last time something like this happened, the police were coming door-to-door forcing people to leave. It ended up being just a little rain and some wind. We had assumed that if no one forced us to evacuate it must be safe to stay. My dad made the executive decision not to leave when we realized the door was not going to budge.
“We had a two-family home, and so my downstairs neighbors, who we had always found generally irritating, marched up into the living room of my house. When you opened the door to my apartment you walked straight into a modern open floor plan. A large L-Shaped couch divided my living room and dining room with a small kitchen to the right. As you walked past the kitchen, there were four doors. A bathroom, my brother’s room, my room, and my parent’s room all the way at the end of the hallway. This was now a shelter to myself, my older brother, my mom, my dad, Igor, Lisa, and their daughter, Alana.
“My dad and Igor stepped out onto the balcony to watch murky blue waves flooding down the street they had once driven their cars on. The water is now at about five feet. Car alarms were ringing like church bells on a Sunday morning. Their piercing beep was like a hammer pounding on your eardrum. My mom’s car, a fancy Lexus, the kind of fancy where there were heated and cooled seats, began to fill with water.
“Within about twenty minutes, the wave had carried my mom’s car into my neighbor’s house. A Ford explorer was making its way down the street. Scientists speculate that the storm was bad because of the full moon. It was bright white with hints of grey and it pierced through the nearly blackened sky. They called this a tidal effect. It looked like a scene out of a Tim Burton movie. Amen, the neighbor living to the left of me, yelled out for help. His one-story beach bungalow was nearly full of water. My dad ran up into our attic and grabbed a rope. He tied one end around his waist and the other to the railing of our stairs. He had Igor stand at the top of the railing, and my dad swam to Amen.
“This was quite the feat, as I wasn’t even sure if my dad knew how to swim. My dad then tied Amen and his elderly mother to the rope and the trio swam back to my house and went upstairs. My dad and Igor repeated the process for fifteen more strangers and two dogs swimming by. It was better they were on the second floor of our house than swimming in the street. At about midnight my dad retired the cord and came inside. He looked exhausted. My dad used to work nights, so I’ve seen him tired before, but this was different. His whole body was slumped, and he was completely soaked. His skin was so noticeably pale that you could trace every vein in his arms with your finger. My dad got himself and Igor a fresh set of clothes and towels. The two of them tried to warm up with some blankets but you could still see them shiver if you looked close enough. We later learned the water was at about fourteen feet at the peak of the hurricane.
“Everyone was sitting on the L-shaped couch in my living room, while Alana and I were in my room. My brother was just across the hall in his room, and my mother was laying across the floor as a ‘defense’ for anyone that would try to harm the kids. I want to believe the best in people but at the end of the day, I had never seen most of the people sheltered in my house that night. My mom figured if anyone tried to get to us, they would trip and fall over her first. My dad set out a ton of candles that were leftover from Hanukkah, and any food and water we had that didn’t go bad.
“There were quite a few characters on my couch that night. We had a husband whose wife and kids evacuated, an elderly woman, and a man without a pinky. Most notably we had a middle-aged woman in a matching velour tracksuit with a mini purse—the kind of purse that could fit a pack of gum, cigarettes, and maybe a Blackberry phone. She only cared about her golden trio: coffee, cigarettes, and corona (the beer). She made it known. She yelled it from the balcony. She yelled it from the bathroom window. My parents didn’t smoke, and we had no power to turn on the Keurig, but we did have beer. They decided it wasn’t smart to give her alcohol, as a situation of this nature is difficult enough to handle completely sober. My dad asked Ms. Golden Trio to stay quiet so we could fall asleep. I remember my dad coming up to my mom and hearing them talk about what would happen if the water started to rise again. My dad decided to go up into the attic and check things out.
“Our attic was full of holiday decorations and old photo albums filled with pictures of my parents in their 20s, back in Uzbekistan. He determined that if we needed to, we can all make something work up there, but we were hoping it wouldn’t get to that point. Alana and I were lying in my bed. Alana was nervous. It was so quiet that I could hear her breathe. Her breath was irregular, and it sounded like she kept gasping for air. She couldn’t get enough in to fill her lungs. I passed her my stuffed toy frog that I slept with every night, and I saw her body relax a little. She held onto my frog like it was the only thing she was placed on this earth to do.
“Just as Alana and I were dozing off, we heard shrieks coming from the pizzeria two doors down. There was a man on the roof of the pizzeria. We instantly jolted out of bed to tell my dad. We found him in my dark living room as if Night Vision himself gave us his superpower. My dad looked out my bedroom window, and after some contemplating he reached his head out and yelled to the fiddler on the roof, ‘HI! EXCUSE ME! SIR, WE SEE YOU AND WE HEAR YOU. I DON’T THINK WE CAN GET TO YOU. WE DON’T HAVE A LADDER. STAY THERE AND HOLD ON...THE RAIN LOOKS LIKE IT’S GOING TO STOP ANY MINUTE. STAY SAFE.’
“We knew there was nothing we could do, and I’m not even entirely convinced that the man heard everything my dad had to say. I’m not even convinced the man saw my dad from the window. He was two houses down and the sky was dark. At the end of the day, my dad’s words were merely empty promises. We had no clue when this would be over. You never think about the phrase ‘stay safe.’ It’s just as empty as any promise. It puts so much pressure on you, as an individual, to value your well-being. This is of course important but staying safe means so much more than that. Sure, you can take precautions but the phrase itself never accounts for context. Telling the fiddler on the roof to ‘stay safe,’ is like telling your hamster not to get lost when you put him in a hamster ball and let him roam the house: in both situations the individual has absolutely no idea or control over their setting. You just keep doing something in hopes it’s keeping you safe.
“Alana drifted off to sleep, clutching my toy frog like a lifeline. I laid on my side, my body positioned towards the window. I was watching the waves rush by, it almost looked like the Great Wave of Kanagawa was coming to life right before my eyes. I couldn’t feel anything. I didn’t feel the Christmas fuzzy socks on my feet or the fleece sweatpants on my legs or the wool sweater that wrapped my body. I was numb, and I don’t think it was from the cold. I don’t know whether I couldn’t feel anything, or if I just didn’t want to try. My brain wasn’t letting my mind wander into a dream either, so I just laid in bed and stared blankly at the window like it was a painting in a museum.
“I think I’ve had panic attacks before, but I don’t really know. If a panic attack is trying to gasp for air when it feels like someone is exerting all of their might to hold you underwater, then I know the feeling. If a panic attack is crying so much your lips just quiver down, and you can’t make a sound, I know the feeling. If a panic attack is pacing around until the heels of your feet start to feel sore, I know the feeling. This was different. I was in the moments between breaths, sobs and steps. The moments where you couldn’t feel anything but knew you were about to be overwhelmed with emotion. I was just numb.
“At some point, my eyelids were so heavy that it felt like there were sandbags sewn onto each and every eyelash. I could not help but close my eyes and doze off for what felt like hours. Some of the people on the living room couch had medical issues. My mom treated everything that night, whether it be diabetes, anemia or just cuts and scrapes. My mom is a doctor, but she was at home, so her medical supplies were limited to a slightly more advanced first aid kit. Nevertheless, she helped everyone with whatever she had.
“At first sunrise Ms. Golden Trio took her pocketbook and with the words, ‘fuck this,’ and left. My parents tried telling her this was not the best idea as the water had only gone down two or three feet from the night before, but she was on a hunt for the three C’s. We all gathered on the balcony and watched her swim two blocks down. I don’t know if she had an alcohol addiction, but her unquenchable thirst for something to take the edge off was strong enough for her to leave. We had no clue if the whole island was under water, if this was only our neighborhood, or anything about the situation outside of who and what we could see through the windows, so Ms. GT’s choice to leave was bold, to say the least.
“At 10 am, firefighters on rowboats came down my street. They called us and asked if anyone needed immediate help. My dad directed them to the fiddler on the roof and they went after him. My mom filled the next five boats with her patients. Any last stragglers went on the boats after that. It wasn’t just our house, it was a street full of houses, so even with however many boats the FDNY was sending, there was only one coming by us every twenty minutes or so. After everyone but my downstairs neighbors left, my mom packed a bag, this time packing more than a couple clothing changes and travel size toiletries. The water had finally started to go down, but we couldn’t wait it out. Some gasoline from the many cars that were wrecked the night before had leaked into the water. The water went from this murky shade of blue to having a rainbow swirled film of gas resting on its surface. My parents were worried that someone like Ms. Golden Trio would light a cigarette and throw it out the window and the whole block would catch on fire. So, we got on a boat.
“As we were rowing down the street I had once rode my bike down, I noticed a traffic light. It was hanging by a thread, and permanently stuck on green, flickering every few seconds. F. Scott Fitzgerald could not have imagined a more poetic scene. My parent’s green light was going to be a single-family suburban home, with a yard, some dogs, and a picket fence. These events were the very push they needed to leave Midland Beach. We saw my dad’s colleague, who lived a couple streets away from us. He was on an air mattress floating towards Hylan Blvd, the first street to not be under water. We pulled him onto our boat and continued to row. The boat dropped us off on Hylan Blvd. and a shuttle bus driver asked us where he should take us. My dad’s work car was parked by his office, so we went there. We got into the car and drove to my aunt’s house, who was waiting with earl grey tea in hand.”
***
I kept my teacher updated on life post hurricane. She was a concerned lady. So, every few weeks, I would stay in the “Extended Day” program, and I would tell her about what my life looked like. At the end of the year, Mrs. Pearce chose me to give a speech at graduation. Although I haven’t spoken to her since then, I know she cared about me a lot as a student and as a person.
On the last day of school, we sat down again, and talked about what had happened since the end of 2012. Apart from my growing love of One Direction (they had just blessed the world with their sophomore album Take Me Home), I told her: “We stayed with my aunt for 30 days after the hurricane. My mom said she was ‘never ever going back to that house,’ and that ‘we have to move to a no flood zone’ so my parents started house hunting immediately.
They found my current house in Eltingville, Staten Island about six months after the events of October 2012. It’s a one family home with a white picket fence and everything. The frosting on the cake is that the house would only start to flood if and only if the two main roads on Staten Island—Hylan Blvd. and Richmond Ave.—were seventeen feet underwater. We went back to my old house to say goodbye to Amen and pack up the rest of our belongings. Alana and I went to my room and we sorted through my clothes. The clothes in her closet were gone. The tide took them, so she was going to take some of my clothes.
As we finished packing, we saw no other than Ms. Golden Trio. She strutted over to my parents with the confidence of a supermodel at Paris Fashion Week, in her matching velour sweatsuit and a few more wrinkles around her eyes—almost to signal that she’s seen some shit—and they started catching up. Ms. Golden Trio had won the lottery.”
Mrs. Pearce left me off with these words, “Staten Island may be a trying place to live at times, but it is home. The resilience the Island has shown in the face of a hurricane is unmatched and I’m glad that we are a part of this community.”
There are three things 90% of Staten Islanders have in common: 1. They were born in Brooklyn. 2. They somehow know someone who knows someone who knows Pete Davidson. And 3. They have a Hurricane Sandy story. If I relate to my fellow Staten Islanders on no other basis than the three criteria listed above, I would be content. Staten Island is home despite its cult-like admiration for Tucker Carlson and the fact that you cannot throw a rock without hitting MAGA memorabilia. So, I must remember its resilience and unity when it gets a little suffocating to live here. At the end of the day, in case of another emergency, it is an island, and we would all be stuck here together.
By Inga Keselman
Photograph by Inga Keselman