I was asked me to share my experience volunteering in Staten Island today. Please get out and help, my words cannot even begin to describe what is happening in our backyard to our fellow New Yorkers.
This morning I woke up and I loaded up my car with supplies, and along with two friends of mine, we drove to Staten Island to help out with the recovery effort. We had no traffic on this beautiful Sunday morning, and maybe we have the gas crisis to thank for that. My neighborhood in downtown NYC had no power for five days and looked like a ghost town, but today, and as it has been since the power was restored, it was like nothing ever happened.
I have to admit my time in Staten Island has really only been to attend court appearances at the main Courthouse and at the satellite version and other than that I have spent no time in the borough.
That also was true for my two friends, but both of them had only been to the borough to run in the NYC Marathon, which ironically was supposed to be held today as we all know. Both of them noticed as we crossed the Verrazano bridge that it was on this bridge the marathon begins and there normally would have been thousands of people running on the bridge towards NYC, and we were driving into what we would later describe as a “war zone.”
Our destination was a public school, that a local Staten Islander and a fellow attorney, told me was a station for volunteers. As we began our drive down Father Cappodanno Boulevard, the utter destruction this storm produced became apparent. The first clue of this was seen as soon as we got into the town – there was an incredible amount of what was now garbage, and what was a week before peoples possessions, on the street waiting for garbage trucks that clearly had not gotten there yet. Peoples lives were on the curb, ending up in waterlogged trash. I saw stoves, refrigerators, baby clothes, baby toys, furniture,