New chapters emerge in 6 years since Sandy’s devastation
New York — Meteorological monster Superstorm Sandy roared into the heavily populated New York metropolitan area six years ago Monday, leaving at least 182 people dead from the Caribbean to the Northeast.
The storm caused tens of billions of dollars in damage. It also left stories and images of resilience, resolve and humanity. People at the heart of these and other stories from storm have rebuilt, regrouped and added new chapters.
The Associated Press revisited some of those stories and explored the new chapters added since the storm.
Faith in each other
Disaster struck in the dark of night in Belle Harbor, and residents knew they couldn’t wait for aid.
Superstorm Sandy’s surge swamped the community, which sits on New York City’s narrow Rockaway peninsula, and an electrical fire broke out and spread to over a dozen homes. There was no way for firetrucks to get to the area, where many people hadn’t heeded evacuation orders.
So Belle Harbor residents set out to rescue one another.
With power out and embers flying, people donned waders and used their kayaks and surfboards to ferry neighbors to higher ground through the cold, 4-foot floodwaters. Others formed a human chain to ensure no one was swept away.
After morning came, residents would learn some lives had been lost — two Belle Harbor residents drowned in basements — and homes, too.
But the community’s cohesion survived, says Tommy Woods, who used his surfboard and a kayak to rescue his family and over 25 neighbors as his own home burned. Woods, a fire lieutenant, was awarded a medal for his off-duty actions that night.
Despite Belle Harbor’s ordeal, he didn’t hesitate to rebuild and return.
“The people are wonderful,” he explains.
Six years later, most residents have stayed. Homes have been restored, and Sandy led to a new ferry service and a rebuilt boardwalk.
“If you took a stroll down there one day,” says resident Thomas Buell, one of the kayak rescuers, “you’d see people who have faith in each other and believe in each other. Believe in their community.”
‘We helped a lot of people’
George Kasimos lost no time rebuilding his Sandy-flooded house on a lagoon in Toms River, N.J. Using skills from his decades in real estate, he started work within a week and was nearly finished in four months.
Then the Federal Emergency Management Agency unveiled new flood insurance standards that deemed many more homes at risk, spiking insurance costs unless owners made major improvements — usually including elevating their houses. Kasimos recalls his annual flood insurance bill was set to rise from $1,000 to $30,000.
Stunned, he started researching building codes and insurance regulations late into the night.
Feeling he wasn’t getting accurate information, Kasimos started a Facebook group called Stop FEMA Now to share information on rebuilding rules. Soon, several hundred people were attending meetings of the group, which now counts 50,000 members in 30 states.
It caught the ear of federal officials, and FEMA eventually scaled back the new flood insurance rules. While many analysts feel the current system is unsustainable without major changes, they have proved politically difficult to implement.
“I feel like we helped a lot of people, but there are still so many ongoing issues with rebuilding and insurance, particularly in places that just got hit with hurricanes,” Kasimos says. “That’s a big reason why this group is still around.”
Kasimos, meanwhile, did raise his home — so high that he installed an elevator to give visitors’ knees a break from the steep staircases.
A superstorm and a marathon
Lance Svendsen was ready to run his first marathon, in memory of an uncle who’d been a fan.
But with about 36 hours to go, the New York City Marathon was canceled as the city contended with the aftermath of the superstorm four days earlier.
Reluctant to give up on a race they were doing for charity, Svendsen and a friend said: “Let’s just run anyway.”
On Facebook, Svendsen invited other runners to join their make-your-own marathon — 26.2 miles’ worth of loops around Central Park — and bring donations for Sandy relief.
He figured a few dozen people might show up. Thousands did.
The finish line became a starting point for Svendsen, who has now woven running into his life and work as a youth ministry director at nondenominational Stanwich Church in Greenwich, Conn.
He’s president of the RunAnyway Foundation, which raises money through charity runs, and draws on his running stamina to carry sick children to hospitals from remote Guatemalan mountain villages. And after his first official marathon turned into horror in Boston in 2013 — he was a block away from the finish-line bombing that killed three people — he started writing a book about running’s role in his life. He aims to publish it in December.