Looking at the pictures of the complete devastation of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and elsewhere is bringing back some hefty sense memories of Hurricane Sandy hitting New Jersey.
I remember the smell of everything wet and moldy and rotten, and the sight of streets that looked as if the houses had vomited their contents, if there was house standing at all. I remember fire departments from as far away as Oklahoma doing demolition, and power departments from Maine and New Hampshire looking at the tangled wiring. Our power was eventually restored by crews from Alabama and Arkansas. I remember gas crews from absolutely everywhere including Canada searching meticulously for open gas lines. I learned that the mayors of a lot of beach towns and small townships are unpaid positions, including after a natural disaster.
I remember the absolute worst of the devastation, the scent of mold and standing sewer water, the frightening darkness and silence at night, the sight of boats in yards where no houses stood.
And I definitely remember the absolute kindness of people, sharing extension cords across residential streets, bringing coffee and donuts to the gas station attendants. (In New Jersey it’s illegal to pump your own gas and, as we were under gas rationing, they were very busy.) The National Guard and Army Corps set up kitchens with refrigerated trailers and medical tents, and restaurant chefs worked together to feed all the volunteers, all the fire departments and power and electrical crews from everywhere, all the people who lost everything and didn’t have anywhere to go. Cases of water and shared generators and phone charging stations on the stoops of row houses: a thousand little kindnesses to help an overwhelmingly shitty and terrifying situation.
And, if I can growl for a minute, I will never forget the Red Cross doing photo ops with diverted emergency vehicles and taking in millions, then “diverting assets for public relations purposes,” per internal reports obtained by ProPublica and NPR in 2013, as reported by Justin Elliott and Jesse Eisinger, ProPublica, and Laura Sullivan, NPR.
(I will never not be angry about this, so thank you for allowing me a moment to snarl.)
I’ve been collecting links for a few mutual aid groups, local organizations, and resources to donate to help. It is bleak to see the aftermath, and terrifying to comprehend the devastation, but we can each help, and provide a little kindness for someone who desperately needs it.
If you have recommendations for organizations operating locally and immediately, please drop them in the comments. Thank you for being a wonderful, awesome community.
