Ryan S



“Gathering Storm II” 

Pastel 



This reminds me of a day four years ago, when I was watching the news one day and they were showing the weather maps for Hurricane Sandy. I was lying there on the couch, watching the news, when I saw a storm that was literally bigger than New Jersey about to slam face first into New Jersey. 
And a pang of terror struck me. 
It turns out that my fear was not misplaced as trees were uprooted and the entire state shut down. We didn’t have power for a week, having to make daily gas trips to fuel our generator, waiting in line with many others to fill up the gas can we had brought. A friend of mine came up with the idea to mine fallen power lines for their copper content, reasoning that the power companies were just going to discard and replace them. 
We eventually got our power back, but not before our cellphone service. And our power didn’t return for three weeks. I remember figuring out how to access the internet on my desktop through my phone so that my mom could watch NCIS. 
We all have our priorities, I guess. 
I can only imagine how terrifying it was for those on the shore who had literally lost their homes due to the unprecedented power of the storm. I was actually at Long Beach Island 9 months later and surveyed the aftermath of the wreckage, the Southern end of the barrier island still in a state of disrepair as sections of the beach were cordoned off for restoration. 
I can only imagine how terrifying it was for them.