sandy

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It's been a week since Hurricane Sandy has come through my home state of New Jersey. The weekend before, stores were packed full of people buying canned food and water. We knew this time would be different.

Monday night we watched the wind bend trees, felt it shake the house. We lost power early on. Before bed, we saw the sky light up blue and orange, like fireworks from the distant transformers blowing. When we woke up on Tuesday, when the skies were clear, we ventured out to see the real damage.

Trees down on peoples lawns, on their houses, on their cars, on power lines. Sheds ripped apart and scattered. Street signs blown yards away from where they were planted. No one had power besides the few who had generators. Traffic lights, gas stations, stores, there was no power anywhere. We were very lucky not to have any real damage to our house. There wasn't any flooding because we aren't close to the shore

Lines for the few gas stations that could operate were miles long. Some townships had to boil their water for fear of contamination. At night, the temperature dropped toward freezing so many families chose to sleep in rooms together to keep warm from body heat. The next couple days we slowly started seeing the clean up and power being restored. We were without power, heat, and hot water for 5 days.

The Jersey shore, a favorite of many, has seen so much damage that no one knows how long it will take to restore it to its former glory days. Seeing neighborhoods and communities come together in this time of need has been remarkable but we still have a long way to go. While things slowly get back to normal here, please keep the struggling people of the Tri-State area in mind and donate if you can for those who need help rebuilding.