Memories of Sandy

 

Greenwich, CT, post-superstorm. Oct 30, 2012

A hurricane hit the area ten years ago tonight. That hurricane evolved into a superstorm. To be honest, I'd never heard that term before then and haven't heard it after that night.

I remember that it was a Monday and that I had a talk show to do that night. So, keeping the commitment, I decided I would go in.

But, I also figured it was possible I could be a help to WGCH. I called Tony Savino and he said to come on down.

I was there before 3 p.m., armed with a sleeping bag and an air mattress.

Not long after I got there, Tony told me that a radio station from Vancouver, Canada had called and asked for a guest to go on to talk about preparing for the storm. I was that guest.

I appeared on the Simi Sara on CKNW radio. I was asked if I would be interested in appearing again the next day after the storm had passed.

The next hiccup was when our own Mary Anne DeFelice -- host of "The Mary Anne Show" -- wasn't comfortable with coming in. So, would I do it?

I went on the air at 3 p.m. for the first time and hosted the show. My goal was to inform listeners about the status of the storm while remaining topical and relaxed. After all, I jumped in literally with no preparation.

So began my long night of radio. WGCH Assistant News Director Jim Campbell eventually joined me for the evening. At that point, we were two journalists who talked news and the storm. We took phone calls and monitored the local power utilities for their outages map.

Eventually, all power would go out.

My talk show colleagues -- Chris Erway, Ryan DeMaria, and Chris Kaelin -- all told me they weren't going to the station but each one chimed in via phone. The conversation remained professional but at times we also tried to keep things light and entertaining.

This was a fairly important gig. My car sat outside the building and I remembered wondering if it would get damaged (it didn't). 

Jim and I also stayed in touch with Tony all night, who was anchored at the Public Safety Complex several blocks down Mason Street. Tony elected to walk there and, while I've done that walk, I can't imagine it was fun in a hurricane/superstorm.

I felt this was one of the more important community service things on radio I'd ever been a part of and I remain proud of the whole thing. 

What didn't thrill me was that, as we were slogging through our eighth hour on the air, and heading towards 11 p.m, everything went black.

Tony had fought through the rain and wind to get back to the station and we were just beginning to discuss how much longer we should stay on the air when the power went out. I'll always remember the traffic light at the corner of Lewis and Mason Streets remaining on via battery backup for some time after everything else went dark.

With that, we were off the air and our coverage was also. Also with that, any hope of archival audio was gone.

We gathered in the office after that for a few minutes, beginning to assess what had just happened. for some reason, and I never did know why, a Greenwich police officer came in the door.

Jim and Bob Small -- who'd also been around the building most of the night -- both lived in Greenwich.  With that, Jim looked towards the cop with a flashlight on to light anything we could and began to speak.

"Officer," Jim said, "I live in..." 

"You're not going anywhere," the officer replied.

I knew I wouldn't be back in Mahopac that night. By definition, the roads were closed due to a state of emergency. I felt no reason to test that in the dark. To that end, I checked on Mom to make sure she was OK. Except for some down branches and no power, she was fine.

Incidentally, Bob was able to get home. But by 11 p.m. Tony, Jim, and I faced the reality that were sleeping at the station that night.

Eventually, each one of us headed to a different room to sleep. If I recall correctly, Tony took an office, Jim took the main air studio, and I headed into the office that I had at the time.

I hadn't inflated the air mattress because I felt sort of guilty that I had brought it but the others didn't have such an extravagance. I loaded batteries into the air pump for the air mattress, turned it on, and ... 

Of course, the batteries were dead and the pump didn't work.

I heaved a sigh, unrolled my sleeping bag, and hunkered down on the floor. The light of the dying traffic signal keep a green, red, and occasional amber hue coming through the window.

As I'm sure you won't be surprised, I didn't sleep much as Monday, Oct 29 faded into Tuesday, Oct 30, 2012.

I got up and, ultimately, decided that there wasn't much more I could do at WGCH that morning. We couldn't get on the air but the question now was if I could drive home.

There was only one way to find out.

Before leaving town, I drove around to see a little bit of the damage. I saw downed trees and very little life due to no power.

Otherwise, it was pretty unspectacular.

I got on I-95 and began to head home. Despite the continued state of emergency, traffic moved swiftly. I went back to Mahopac without incident.

Eventually, Simi Sara's producer would call and, with some battery still on my phone, I spoke with the CKNW host while pacing in my yard as I picked up branches resting on the ground.

Power eventually came back on later that night and life moved along.

I was lucky in that the damage in my life was minimal. So many others -- especially those along the shoreline -- suffered incredible damage and loss. In New York State alone, the reported numbers were 53 fatalities and $32 billion in damages in 2012 dollars.

Staten Island, lower Manhattan, parts of Brooklyn and Queens were especially hard hit.

The Fairfield County coastline of Connecticut also got walloped. I specifically recall a bad fire in the Old Greenwich part of town while we were on the air. I recall the town of Fairfield got hit hard also.

It was spectacular but not in a good way.

But, as a broadcaster and a journalist, it's an experience that I have relived many times since, especially to broadcasting students. I use the superstorm as an example of covering breaking news and being prepared for anything. 

I also use it as an example of how nuts you need to be in broadcasting. Sleeping on the floor of a radio station wasn't ideal but things could have been much worse.

I find -- 10 years later -- myself wondering about that first weather experience now that I live here in Greenwich and how I would have handled that night. We live slightly close to the shore of Long Island Sound now.

Unforgettable.

I'm content to not go through it again.

*****

Greenwich beat Darien today in football. The significance of that can't be minimized for the Cardinals.

I hadn't been back to Darien High School in a few years. I was once there covering games on what felt like a weekly basis.

There are memories. 

I've written enough for tonight but that's where I'll leave it: memories.