I was blessed to have not been really been affected by Hurricane Sandy, but there were lots of people not too far away that were. My stake has organized service days every weekend since the hurricane, so each week I've gone out and donned one of the famous Mormon Helping Hands yellow vests.
 |
| House #1 |
The first week we spent the day cleaning out a yard that was literally covered in a couple feet of seaweed and reeds, with mangled debris on top of that. We met the homeowner at another location in town, and he gave us his address and directions and the comment that we would recognize his house by the fact that all of Jamaica Bay was in his yard. He wasn't kidding. At the end of the day we had a pretty good pile of stuff out on the street- to add to all the other piles of stuff on the street. It is a pretty sobering sight to walk through the neighborhoods and realize that all these piles of broken stuff are things that once graced the homes of people in these neighborhoods and surrounding areas- all carried and destroyed by the power of the storm.
 |
| 8 people. 5 hours. A lot of stuff- plus another sizable pile of seaweed/reeds not shown. |
 |
| Smiling because we're wearing our yellow vests :) |
Week 2 I spent between 3 houses. At the first house we were hauling the belongings out to the sidewalk for a woman who spoke no English and appeared to live by herself. I don't know how she was planning to move everything on our own, it would have been impossible. She wasn't even on our list- the people whose houses we were supposed to be at weren't home and she happened to see us and flagged us down. We were able to communicate enough for her to tell us if something was "okay" meaning that it should go in the stay pile, or out to the curb for sanitation to pick up. Most everything had to go to the curb.
 |
| Yes, our all girl (okay we had one boy) team managed to haul out the fridge, stove, etc. |
House #2 was an elderly couple who needed their walls torn out. We spent a couple hours ripping out wall paneling, gyp board, and insulation. At house #3 we ripped out a wood floor. It was pretty incredible to think back to how I spent the beginning of this year building a house, and now look at the same materials as I am tearing them down. Materials that seemed so strong and difficult to work with fell apart and came out with ease after being soaked with water and battered by the storm.
Week #3 was spent cleaning out all the belongings of the summer home of a widower, and then tearing out the walls and floors. Basically everything in the house had to go. Books, videos, furniture, cabinets, dishes, etc. What had once been a full and happy house, a summer retreat where they were obviously fond of entertaining, was an empty shell by the end of the afternoon.
 |
| Week 3's pile. |
What amazed me the most was not the strength of the storm- although it was obvious from the destruction that it had been extremely powerful- but the strength of the people. The homeowners were exhausted and dirty, but not defeated. Even if they weren't sure how they were going to move forward after this, not once did I hear a "why did this happen to me?" or "this isn't fair" or any of the number of things they had every right to say. Instead it was "thank you" and "have you checked on my neighbor Bob? He might need help." In every neighborhood I visited, people were looking out for each other. Making sure that their neighbor was okay- often before their own houses were in order. In some cases, these people had spent the last 3 weeks helping everyone in their community, while their own house sat in disarray- without power, without heat, and full of water- because they knew there were others out there who weren't capable of recovering without their help.
Everywhere we went we were instantly recognized (thanks to our yellow vests) and thanked. People stopped their cars or went out of their way to walk to us to tell us how much our help meant to them and to their neighbors. The first week we were sitting in a playground eating lunch (provided by someone in the community who was giving free lunch to all the helpers and anyone who came by) when a woman walked over to us. At first I thought she was coming to get after us for sitting in the middle of the play area (in our defense it was the only place where we could sit and have a back rest and we were tired after moving stuff), but instead she came to tell us how grateful she was for us. She told us how we were the talk of the island, how we had been there first, and that we were the only ones still there. Other people echoed her words throughout the weeks.
I'm grateful to have been able to be a part of Mormon Helping Hands these past few weeks. I'm so grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The past two weeks we've held a thirty minute Sacrament Meeting before heading out together to serve in place of our usual meetings- because serving others is what the gospel is all about. Treating our brothers and sisters as Christ would, with love and compassion- ready to help in any way necessary. Hopefully it doesn't always have to take a hurricane to remind us.
