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David Friedman / NBC News
Neighbors Bob Reilly, left, and Jim McGovern embrace among the burned-out remains of their Breezy Point, N.Y., homes on Wednesday.
BREEZY POINT, N.Y. — As Hurricane Sandy turned the streets of this community into raging rivers on Monday evening, one company of volunteer firefighters ditched their rescue boats and sought refuge in the community center. Inside they found another bunch of volunteer firefighters, also stranded by rising water, who asked, "Are you here to rescue us?"
That was shortly before 70-mph winds blew embers the size of baseballs through the heart of this close-knit community on the Rockaway Peninsula in New York City’s Queens borough.
Interviews with residents and firefighters on Wednesday provided a more complete account of how the disaster unfolded in this beachside town when Sandy blasted ashore.
In a community where firefighters are demigods, where a memorial at the end of the point honors more than 30 residents who lost their lives at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, three companies of volunteer firefighters were overwhelmed by flooding and an inferno that destroyed more than 100 houses. Yet they fought the elements all night, saving many people and protecting houses on the perimeter of the burn zone, including the home of a 9/11 widow.
David Friedman / NBC News
The Rockaway Point Fire Department, one of three volunteer fire houses in Breezy Point, was unable to get its flooded trucks running during the storm. The men took to boats to pull people from the water.
When the water hit about 5:30 p.m., quickly disabling the fire engines and ambulances of the Rockaway Point Fire Department, its volunteers abandoned their firehouse. But when a call came in to rescue a wheelchair-bound elderly woman trapped in a flooded house, Lt. Jimmy Morton and four of his men put on their wetsuits and headed out in two motorboats — a 14-foot inflatable Zodiac and a 15-foot fiberglass Wheeler, steaming up the road into a hurricane.
Breezy Point residents search for the past, look to the future
The idyllic beachfront town of Breezy Point, N.Y., suffered through 9/11 and a devastating jet crash nearby. But this tight-knit community is determined to carry on. NBC's Rehema Ellis reports.
The Breezy Point peninsula was inundated, the waters of the Atlantic Ocean merging with the waters of Jamaica Bay. Electrical transformers arced and sparked in the sky. Streets were disjointed as entire blocks of houses were shifted off their foundations. The winds blew 3-foot waves into the boats. Debris wrapped around the propellers. Finally they had to turn back, ditching their boats at the community center, crawling up a ladder and through a window to safety. They still don’t know what happened to the woman in the wheelchair.
Inside the community center, known as the Clubhouse, the Rockaway Point crew found 20 firefighters from the Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Department, who had abandoned their own firehouse next door when it flooded. They were tending to about 20 people, mostly elderly and disabled. All were huddled on a stage where schoolchildren usually put on summer plays, with rising water lapping just a few inches below the lip of the stage.
David Friedman / NBC News
Chairs sit on the elevated stage of The Clubhouse, where Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Chief Marty Ingram and fellow firefighters huddled with rescued residents to escape rising floodwaters from Hurricane Sandy.
The Point Breeze fire chief, Marty Ingram, a retired Air Force helicopter pilot, had just finished leading the group in a prayer, an Our Father in the candlelight, when the Rockaway Point firefighters arrived.
A glow in the sky
"I was scared. We all were," Ingram said. "I told everyone, ‘We're beach people. Just imagine it's a summer day and you're standing in three feet of water at the beach, and relax.’" Afraid they would drown when water got higher than the windows, blocking escape, Ingram decided that if the water reached two inches on the stage, the men would take down the Christmas lights strung across the ceiling and use them as a rope line to try to cross the rapidly flowing Point Breeze Avenue to reach a two-story house. He finished a second Our Father, when everyone agreed the water might have receded a little bit.
David Friedman / NBC News
Point Breeze Volunteer Fire Chief Marty Ingram. "I told everyone, 'We're beach people. Just imagine it's a summer day and you're standing in three feet of water at the beach, and relax.'"
It was about 8:30, just before high tide, when they first noticed a glow in the sky.
Breezy Point: 'Whatever is not flooded is on fire'
Glenn Serafin had been one of the first to see the flames, near his home on Atlantic Avenue, on the ocean side of town in the knotted area of tightly grouped houses known as the Wedge, where the streets are as wide as sidewalks, the lots only 20 by 43 feet, the houses seven to 10 paces wide. He had been tending his pump, ignoring repeated phone calls from the community safety office insisting that everyone evacuate. He was expecting a few feet of water in his basement, as had happened in previous hurricanes, but he allows that "my thinking was flawed." He took a nap about 6:30 p.m., but was awakened by water in his basement, which had risen neck high. Then the electrical outlets started popping from the salt water, and he heard the rush of water moving up the street.
Then, after 8 o'clock, out his back window, he spotted the fire, in one of the bungalows behind the larger beachfront house of Rep. Bob Turner (who got his job after Anthony Weiner lost his for sending nude photos and risque text messages). The fire leaped to the congressman's house, then to the house next door, where an older lady has kept a parrot for 50 years, the one that entertains children by repeating some choice words it learned from her dockworker husband. Then it jumped again and again, driven by the powerful southeast wind. The phones were out. The cell phones were out. Serafin used a garden hose and a margarita pitcher to throw water on his plastic storm shutters.
Read more Sandy coverage on NBCNews.com
Everyone knows everyone in the Wedge, often hanging out together at the Sugar Bowl beachfront bar. When a friend once asked Serafin, ‘Do you know Alice” he replied, “Oh, yes. She's my wife's brother's wife's brother's wife."
The people here own the houses, but not the land. They live in a gated co-op, some here full time, but most, like Serafin, staying mainly in the summer. A bungalow sells for $350,000, a larger house up to $800,000 or a million in the overheated New York real estate market, but these are mostly middle-class families, heavily Irish-Catholic, enjoying a unique community nicknamed the Irish Riviera. The cars pushed around by the waves carried window stickers from Holy Cross and Georgetown. At the end of each block, the water lapped over yard shrines to Mary and Joseph.
At the swamped Clubhouse, the firefighters could see a firestorm of embers driven by the winds, a volcano erupting toward them in a hurricane. The smoke drove more people out of their houses, even those who had been safe on second floors.
Devastated NY community built by firefighters burned beyond their reach
Across a flooded parking lot, Jack O'Meara and his wife, Aileen, were waving flashlights to alert the firefighters. The men from Rockaway got back into their boats, dodging concrete flower pots in the streets. These men — Michael Valentine, Brandon Reilly, Brian Doyle, Michael Kahlau and Jimmy Morton — went back and forth, pulling in family after family, including the O'Mearas, along with their grown children, John and Trish, and their two cats, Leon and Bright. The firefighters plucked more people abandoning Olive Walk ("Life is good," the sign says) and Roosevelt Walk ("walk softly").
Now the firefighters were worried about embers setting fire to the wooden roof of the Clubhouse, which was starting to fill with smoke. After a third Our Father, they returned to the Point Breeze firehouse and were finally able to get their fire engines started. They began using them to ferry the waterlogged band at the Clubhouse to a more-secure shelter at the flood-damaged St. Thomas More Roman Catholic Church.
Breezy Point, N.Y., suffered devastating losses as a result of Sandy. NBC's Mara Schiavocampo reports.
The community's third company of volunteers, 10 men from the Volunteer Fire Department of Roxbury at the other end of the point, also saw the glow from the fire, but they, too, were in no position to respond. They were on the second floor of their firehouse, driven upstairs by the flood. Their fire trucks sat in four feet of water. All the radios were down, the phones dead. Only when the water went down a couple of feet could they drive to the fire.
A fire marshal whose home is in the Wedge, Kieran Burke, said it was about an hour, after he first saw the glow and smoke, before anyone began fighting the fire. Even then, until about 11 p.m., he said, there was only one hose directed at it.
Slideshow: Sandy slams East Coast
The assistant chief on scene from the New York Fire Department, Joseph Pfeifer, the same first chief to arrive at the World Trade Center on 9/11, said the department came as soon as it was called, though travel on the peninsula was slow in the high water. The timetable will be sorted out in the investigation, but Pfeifer said what's sure is that the city firefighters found an inferno, with at least 20 homes ablaze by the time they arrived. Telephone poles were on fire. Sinkholes opened up in the sandy soil, swallowing cars. Hydrants were hard to find under the seawater and had no water pressure, so the men "drafted" ocean water. Through six alarms, with nearly 300 firefighters working until mid-day Tuesday, they were able to do little more than hold the edges of the fire.
Holding the line at a widow's home
The volunteers from Point Breeze rode to the fire in the bucket of a payloader tractor, fighting alongside the Rockaway volunteers and the paid professionals until 5 in the morning. At one point they worked especially hard to save a large tan house facing the ocean. That's Sheila Scandole's house. Her husband, Robert, was a stock trader with Cantor Fitzgerald who died at the World Trade Center, and they both grew up in Breezy Point.
David Friedman / NBC News
Kieran Burke, a fire marshal, surveys the burned-out remains of his Breezy Point home on Wednesday. He was nearby at his mother's home, which survived but was flooded, when the fire started.
Slideshow: Surviving Sandy, twice
When the sun came up, the Sugar Bowl bar was gone. Kieran Burke's home was down, too, in the middle of a charred landscape the size of two football fields. Firefighters went house by house through the community, but so far found no one dead. The congressman's house was down, its white metal railing decorating a clump of debris at the edge of the burn zone. No one was quite sure what happened to the parrot next door. (Update: The parrot seems to have been rescued by an off-duty firefighter.)
But the house of Sheila Scandole, the 9/11 widow, remained, scarred but standing, staring out at the beach and the calming Atlantic Ocean beyond.
More Sandy coverage from NBCNews.com:
- As National Guard comes to rescue, so do NJ residents — with power outlets
- For some New Yorkers, it's back to business as usual
- For some who stayed behind in New York, it wasn't too bad
- New Jersey investigating reports of price gouging
- Subway-dependent businesses see traffic slow to halt
- Fed up with waiting, air travelers rush rental car counters
- NY's Bellevue Hospital evacuates patients as power stays cut
- Off-duty NYPD officer dies saving his family from Sandy
- Toppled tree exposes skeletal remains, cement box
- Your Sandy photos: Show us the heroes in your life
Follow US news from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook
Leave a Comment:
"let's do this": comment deleted. Please stay on topic.
what do you mean , stay on issue ???? it's election time , and romney campaigned the day after that storm tore up these cities. he is trying to eliminate fema services to people hit the hardest in america by tragedy. come on mr dedman , try your best to do a wink and a knod some times. OOOO , AND GOD BLESS YOU AND YOURS
People were really lucky to get out of there alive!
That's for sure.
My daughter live there and she wanted to stay home and ride the storm in her house. I told her that she need to get out and if she didn't it would be her own fault if something were to happen to her. I say if you die it would be your choice of dying. this is a dangerous storm and you should get out of there. Eventually she came to my house and sure enough here house was under water. So she saved her life her son and cats and her new car. Some time you need to get tough with these people that think nothing is going to happen. The government should impose fine in the future for anyone staying at home during emergency evacuation.
Why impose a fine? The government takes care of all of us no matter how intentionally or accidentially stupid we are. Why take personal responsbility? It's always someone else's fault or someone else should take care of me.
I'm glad your daughter smartly heeded your suggestion to leave.
Glad it wasn't N.O. they had a week to get out & didn't then they wanted to blame Bush.
A lot of people, perhaps thousands owe their lives to two very competent people: Governor Christie and Mayor Bloomberg for ordering an evacuation and getting help in there quickly. Too bad we can't say the same about the governor of LA and the Mayor of New Orleans at the time Katrina hit, who were both extremely incompetent in requesting help. And Sandy was a cat 1, not a cat 4 like Katrina when it hit!
Also, NY and NJ need to update their building codes, prohibiting building in certain areas of the barrier islands and peninsulas like Breezy Point. And stick built homes in that area (build out of wood), should be prohibited.
solid concrete constuction. They have a new system for homes I've seen. It's styrofoam block that tie together with rebar in the cells after it's erected they fill the cells with concrete.
Bless these men, courage my friends is a rare bird in catastrophic situations such as this. These men, they went out into the storm to rescue someone, end up stranded but still mange to rescue others on their way and throughout the night. That is a true testament of ones metal, not to give up, not to turn back. My thoughts and prayers to all affected by this storm.
This was a touching account about the real faces and people impacted by this tragedy. Thankfully, we still have these everyday heroes who reach out to help others despite the risk to themselves. Bless them and may they they be strengthened and encouraged as they work through the clean up and rebuilding process.
If these men were in the military and went above and beyond as they definitely did, they would have been nominated for the medal of honor. After the cleanup and rebuilding, these men deserve to have their names remembered in stone at the very least.
The President should bestow the Medal of Freedom upon them and stop giving it to entertainers. Ever since 9/11, my admiration for Firefighters up NJ/NY way continues to grow.
To everyone in our old stomping grounds Rockaway & Breezy you are in our hearts ! To all those who can and want to help cash donations to reputable charities the way to go.
Ditto. Riding my bike there from Brooklyn was great exercise and at the end, even when I didn't know anybody, like a homecoming. I ended up knowing people, ended up going back, hitting the shower and driving back in the car with decent clothes on for bbqs. THIS is the kind of people they are. I am not surprised they all worked together and did the right things.
Sitting here at my desk crying reading this. I just can't imagine what it was like. I'm so sorry this happened to all of you.
I've given today. If you are able, please consider giving.
who do you give to?
Here's a list of charities:
http://todaynews.today.com/_news/2012/10/30/14805994-sandys-aftermath-how-you-can-help
I am more than proud to say those were my family and friends helping fight those fires and keeping the community safe!!! Breezy will rebuild and better than ever!
350K-800K for a home / condo that you don't own the lend, hence you rent, and that's middle class? i realise everything around NYC area is 2-3 times higher then the rest of the world but damn.....
.sometimes its nice to be in "the great fly over" Midwest......sorry to hear about the whole mess though. good luck folks, keep pulling together
That is the price(s) if you buy now. The houses are kept for generations, and where demand is far higher than supply, this is what happens. The houses were bought for a song way back then and so low even working class people could afford to get a summer house-many of them don't even have heating systems to this day.
However, you are right-NY is way overpriced. As much as I love it, I have to consider moving somewhere more reasonable, and safer from storms (in a very safe suburb but we pay a lot in taxes). Taxes are $10K+ in the suburbs even on modest homes with a crappy lot size. The $15K+ around here is enough to pay a mtg elsewhere. And, as more people with high-paying jobs relocate to Manh, the suburbs are getting pricier and people have to consider a $3 hour daily commute to afford anything and still keep their good jobs in Manhattan.
I pray for my friends in Breezy that through Our Lord And Savior Jesus Christ they find some peace . I spent a lot of my teen yrs (70's)out on the point. NYers are a tough breed I Know they will not give up but will come back a stronger community. God Bless all of you!
Best wishes and prayers to all those affected by this hurricane especially in New Jersey and New York where damage seems to be the worst. Quick recovery and God speed from Meadowvale/Mississauga Ontario, Canada.
They're pretty good at saving their own, out there. You could call that community "tight-knit" but what it is is an enclave. If you're not Irish, much less Catholic, you are cordially invited to stay the bleep out.
They do well, too, working City jobs requiring little education but paying well with an astronomical pension to look forward to after 30 years--or just 20 if you develop "heart trouble".
Which isn't to deny that the job has its occasional downside--like dying in a fire or being killed by an armed suspect or a drunk behind the wheel of an suv.
The salaries for the NYPD suck. And, you are lucky to make 20 years. Many officers drink, DO have heart trouble from years of stress, etc.
The suburbs pay $100K and up and in many, nothing happens crime-wise. In the ones that do, it is nothing compared to the City and not congested so you can be safer. That is why many NYPD officers strive to get into the suburbs before they hit 40 (cut-off). They THOUGHT they were doing the right thing but in the areas that need the most help, most residents hate police.
And, since the pay is so low, they often have to move out to the suburbs further and further away from the City.
Yes, the NYFD is a good job wwith wonderful co-workers and nice people in the area IF you live. And, like the NYPD, you are 24/7 an officer or FF. You could be out with the kids, see something, and have to stick them somewhere safe and deal with it-it cannot just be "turned off". Look at 9/11-EVERYONE just went there-autopilot, and many NYPD and NYFD, the ones that lived, are dying from cancer and other dieases caused by the WTC debris.
So, before we comment on the salaries of NY's Bravest and NY's Finest, consider what they go through AND the fact that those salaries are low, esp in very high-priced NY.
Yes, the wealthier suburbs pay their police very well. But they are highly, highly selective. One DUI and you are O-U-T. They say just about anyone can become a New York City Police Officer, which isn't quite true but considering the almost daily scandals involving NYPD personnel you have to wonder about the selection process.
New York Police pay is low? I don't call $60,00 after three years "low". Plus uniform allowance, plenty of Regular Days Off and vacation. Not a few cops work a second job or do informal outside work, making up for lost sleep in the patrol car. Of course like any public service job the hours aren't like working in an office or a factory. There are nights, Sundays, holidays.
The off-duty thing works both ways. Every off-duty arrest has to be scrutinized as so many happen in bars and clubs.
We've all heard about the 9/11 (millionairess) widows. Who pays those benefits and those under the new law for those claiming illness as a result of being around the debris from the World Trade Center? We good and long-suffering taxpayers.
Does anyone know yet what happened to the parrot? Surely the widow evacuated it.
That's what I was wondering, too! Surely, someone took the parrot out of the house. It hurts to think of the animals who were also caught in this tragedy.
This would appear to be our parrot: From NBC News:
Off-duty firefighter rescued 9 people, a parrot and a few dogs in Hurricane Sandy
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/02/14881881-off-duty-firefighter-rescued-9-people-a-parrot-and-a-few-dogs-in-hurricane-sandy?lite
It is sad that so much property was lost. I am very happy that there was no loss of life in Breezy Point. It still amazes me that there were so many people still out there. Is there something in the words "mandatory evacuation" that means optional? The word, mandatory is pretty clear in my dictionary. We all know what happened in New Orleans a few years back. How many lost thier lives because of thier stubborn ways. Not only do they risk thier own lives, but the lives of those needed to rescue. When will people do what they are mandated to do. Thank God lives were not lost in Breezy Point, only property, which can be replaced. But, nobody should have even been on any of the barrier islands, from the Carolinas, to Maine, they should have been totally evacuated. All coastal communities had warnings well ahead of the storm. I know it sucks leaving your possesions, but lives are more important than material things.
Bless these men as well as so many others from all agencies that prevented this disaster from being even worse- However I would like to say one thing- when there is Hurricane Katrina, Andrew, Earthwuake in Haiti, Tsunami in Indonesia- there are immediately sites set up to raise money for the victims. The only thing I have seen is the typical red cross requests. I for one donate whatever I can in each instance, but am a bit perplexed at how 4 days later there is not one site I have seen or heard of raising money for the victims? Not the people that live downtown and have the money- but the millions that have been affected, lost their homes, valuables, lives and such. I personally think it is kind of F&*#ed up.
If you want to live near the ocean you need to take responsibility for that decision.
Common Man, thats kind of a ridiculous comment. Are you saying people should NOT live by the ocean? maybe they should not live in California because of earthquakes, wildfires, mudslides? Maybe folks should not live in New England because of Blizzards. Maybe we should evacuate the Mid west because the major rivers sometimes flood. Or, because tornados can pop up. Where does a Common Man live, in a protection bubble? We are all subject to unforseen natural disasters.
3/4 of the American People live near oceans, rivers and lakes. The damage from this storm went well inland, it destroyed property and lives many miles from the ocean.
Shawn ole buddy, don't worry about me I will take care of myself and my family. If you want to live next to a ocean I don't want to have to take care of you also.
When can we all stop labeling people as Democrat, Republican, Irish, Catholic, etc. and just all agree that these are human beings who, through the force of nature, have lost everything? Nothing else should matter but to help a fellow human being through a difficult time. If you want to make a political rant, then wait for another forum. Please.
First 911, then Hurricane Sandy and now this crap I'm reading on this blog about the politics of the candidates. You people SUCK. This story is sad. Everything that has happened to the first responders and now to their families. You people should be ashamed of yourselves. Instead of saying crap, help them by donating to the Red Cross or the charities that are helping the victims. My heart and support goes out to the victims. But not to you people who make this a political thing on this discussion group.
Well said! Even Romney (or his advisers) had the sense not to try to turn the storm to politics openly. But obviously some here feel an obligation to be irreverent and irrelevant, by which they label themselves _______. (You fill in the blank!)
Good one BinNH. If I filled in the blank I would be forever banned.
If a natural disaster hits a third world country it gets practically no media coverage, if it hits a developed country like in Europe or the Far East it gets more coverage, if it hits the USA it gets even more coverage and if it hits New York it gets loads of coverage.
Hey William, let's not forget Haiti, okay. It got hit again after the 2010 earthquake where it did get lot of news coverage. It was hit this past August by Hurricane Isaac, and was on the receiving end of some of the recent wrath of Sandy too. So, let's not forget Haiti and other places. It did get news coverage, and now the East Coast is getting news coverage. All the places that suffered damage will be getting some help I am sure.
The Fire Fighters deserve a lot of credit. They saved a lot of people and still fought the fires. This community is lucky to have them. I feel for those that lost their homes. Having a house fire is one of the most helpless feelings you can have. I know I have had it happen to me and my family.
This is a great article, with insights into the real human tragedy and feelings of those directly involved. It mentions, repeatedly, The Lord's Prayer, which starts with "Our Father, who art in Heaven...." a very familiar prayer for we who were raised Christian. But, not everyone who prays is Christian, so let me offer up this non-denominational prayer anyone can say on behalf of our friends and neighbors dealing with Super Storm Sandy and other tough situations around the country and the world. This is not a Christian prayer. I wrote this for anyone and everyone who would like to use these words and this prayer to talk with their God, whomever He or She may be to you.
My Super Storm Sandy Prayer
October 31, 2012, by Bruce-1628250
This is one of those times God, when people wonder, "Why?"
Why do storms like this happen?
Why is there so much damage?
Why do people have to die?
Why didn't YOU stop this?
You are GOD! You can do anything. Why didn't YOU stop this from happening in the first place?
The only answer I can come up with is just this:
This is how LIFE goes on Planet Earth. Earth is not Heaven. You never said it was.
This is just the way it is. Stuff happens, and we human beings need to deal with it as best we can.
It's not a test You're giving us, and it's not some kind of punishment You're meting out to us.
It's just life. It's just the way things happen here on Earth. It's the way things have always happened on this planet, for millions of years. It's just the way it is.
It's in situations like this that we find out who we really are. This is how we learn, and how we grow.
So God, I am not going to ask you to make things better, or fix the damage, or miraculously and instantly heal the injured, of bring back to life those who were taken from us by this devastating storm.
No God, I'm not going to ask you to do any of that, because in my heart I know that's just not how You work.
What I would like to ask You for is just this.
Please give us all the courage and strength to weather this storm, especially those who were, and still are right in the very heart of it who live on the East Coast and all of their friends and relatives.
Please give us, who were not touched physically by this super storm, the compassion to help friends and neighbors even though our neighbors in this case may be thousands of miles way.
And God, while we're dealing with this tough situation in our own country, don't let us forget about all the others around the world who are dealing with problems of their own. Problems and tragedies that are just as bad, and maybe even worse than this.
Help us to remember that we really are our brother's and sister's keepers, and that it really is up to us to make things right, because there is no magical miracle fix that's just going to come from anywhere to make everything better, or take us back in time and make it like this never happened. It happened, and we can deal with it. But we can deal with it better if we have Your help.
Help us to put aside all the petty grievances and trivial differences that we argued about before all this happened, so that we can pitch-in and work together to help those who really need our help on the East Coast of the United States in Sandy's path, and in every other place around our world where people have been hurt by tragedies like this and even more devastating events such as illness, disease and war.
I guess what I'm asking for God, is just this simple thing…
Give us HOPE so we can HELP.
Amen
One way you can help, if you want to, and as mentioned in many of these articles, is to call 1-800-RED CROSS or text REDCROSS to 90999.
God Bless You, All my Friends and Neighbors!
Bruce-1628250--thank you for such a beautiful prayer! After entering my comment (#27), I saw your comment--and read it and it brought tears to my eyes. And so very much truth in it! Thank you again!
Oh--is there a way that you can put it on your newsvine page with a facebook 'share' so that I could post it to my facebook page? I have a really old computer--that's the only way I can repost anything.
Thank you Lisa! I do hope it helps some folks.
I don't know much about Facebook, since I don't have a Facebook account, but at the bottom of this page, at this link below, is a "Recommend..." with a Facebook icon thing. I hope that's what you mean, and that it works. Have a great day!
My Super Storm Sandy Prayer
Lisa, with Bruces' permission, you can copy the prayer onto any blank page in your word processing program, Facebook, email, etc. You just highlight the entire prayer on this post, right-click your mouse, and left click on copy. Go to wherever you want it copied, right-click the mouse and left-click on paste. And, there you go.
Jan & Lisa, permission granted, but I would suggest you get the fixed copy at my Newsvine page. I found some typos and fixed them there. (I don't know how many times I proof-read these things and yet still miss typos!)
The link to the best copy is here... My Super Storm Sandy Prayer
As mentioned above, there is a Facebook "Recommend" icon at the bottom, below the Amen, so that may be easier than cut'n paste, but whatever works for you, GO FOR IT! Share it! God Bless YOU!
Thank you, Bruce--I did click on it, and then did a 'recommend' on facebook...:) And, Jan--that sounds like it is worth a try--thank you too...:)
My thoughts and prayers for all of the people who lost so much! And donations are indeed, in order, whether through the Red Cross, or your local church/temple, or whichever is your favorite. Remember to check relief organizations through Charity Navigator, because there are unscrupulous people out there who will set up fake or very 'thin' charities (by 'thin' I mean the cents per dollar given that actually go to help the victims is REALLY THIN). Please give intelligently!
What a well written article, I really feel like I know these strong, tough, caring group of people. God Bless those fire fighters and all of you on the "east coast" who are having to deal with what's left to you. I pray that God has his hands on you all, to encourage, and re-unite. I've been through the Northridge Earthquake in California and I know that you can rebuild your lives and your hearts.
Agree its really bad that so many lost their homes - cars and even lives. But the media is calling it a superstorm. What?? it came ashore barely a catagorey 1 storm and winds were less than hurricane force of 74 +. They only received 70 mph winds at most; what would have happened if they were in 110-130mph winds??? This clearly shows how ill-prepared they were for a storm and no one took heed of getting out or at least getting hurricane supplies BEFORE the storm hits. No one has a generator (home or gas stations to pump gas), they don't have drinking water and canned foods to tie them over till services are re-estabilished. Along the Gulf coast we go through this every season - its a way of life.
it was called a superstorm because of the size of the storm...1000 miles wide and 1100 miles tall...70mph wind?....thats sustained wind not the gusts...don't forget NYC is an island surrounded by water on all fronts...also a MUCH larger population...gulf coast?...thats like comparing a marble to a beach ball..so, do not try and minimize the destruction sandy caused in a densely populated city..where homes are maybe 6 to 8 feet apart..as compared to gulf coast, you may have only 30 homes in a square area where in NYC it is in the hundreds...
The way we have been living, and all the things we have taken for granted, from beachfront homes to the way we commute... ARE UNSUSTAINABLE.
We have all known this deep down, even those who seek to deny it: hence the popularity of all the disaster films and even pop culture memes like "the zombie apocalypse". The essential un-sustainbility of our way of life (and I am not just talking about the US, but about all industrialized civilization) simmers beneath the surface of our consciousnesses and fails to dramatically affect our daily actions and choices until something like this Sandy disaster happens to remind us how far along the road we are to Total Disaster.
We should indeed contemplate what might have been had Sandy been a category five storm... and then we should take appropriate action in our personal and collective/political lives to make the adjustments required for us to live sustainably on this planet, and especially on the planet under the changing conditions we will be facing in the near future.
The devastation wraught by Hurricane Sandy is tragic; however, it has restored my faith in humankind. People who lost their homes were helping people who were in danger of losing their lives. Those who were able to give aid in any way did so, from delivering food and drinking water to carrying people to safety through flooded streets. Bless all who endured, and are enduring the effects of Sandy's wrath, and all the police, firemen, emergency workers, volunteers, and ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things to give aid. Our thoughts and prayers are with you!
I am always amazed at the brave men and women who put their life on the line for others, NY & NJ God bless you you are true Americans and you have faced more than your fair share of picking up the pieces over the last 10 plus years.
Why was the power not turned off to Far Rockaway? They knew for days the storm surge was coming. Too many Our Father's and not enough clear thinking.