Meghan Mertyris

When Superstorm Sandy hit my home I was 12 years old. I vividly recall being woken up well past midnight by my parents yelling if you want to save your stuff get down here. Myself, my 10 year old, and 5 year old sister ran to our basement where all of our toys, books, and clothes were stored to see water coming up and overtaking everything. We rushed around throwing anything and everything we could to higher points in our basement. We also tried scooping the water out in buckets and running it up the stairs. But every time we thought that we were finally making some progress removing the water, even more would rise up.

Eventually, I remember my Mom stopping, looking at my Dad, and just saying “we can’t do this.” We gave up and let the flood do what it would. The next morning, all I remember was how cold it was because all the power in our house was out. But there was nowhere else to go. We recovered as well as we could which basically meant losing almost everything we had in the basement.

Now, at 21 years old my home was damaged by a storm once again: Hurricane Ida. This time what little we were able to save from Superstorm Sandy was damaged.