A Summer Storm in New York State: Hurricane Irene and Super Storm Sandy
If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger.” – Buzz Aldrin
With hurricane season upon us again, I’m reminded that weather was always an important consideration for both pantry shoppers and volunteers in the Good Neighbor Food Pantry in Woodstock. Winters were important because of the cold, cold, cold waits in front of the building before the door opened.
But, summers were another matter altogether. Storms confronted us several times every summer. They ranged from gentle showers lasting a few minutes to hurricanes of historic proportions.
Always a concern in these summer events was the stream running along the side of the church building. Actually, the building was constructed right into the stream and the parking lot was on the other side of the stream. Drivers crossed over a tiny bridge to park.
Often, when rain came, the little stream rose. On several occasions I feared for the pantry. I didn’t fear for the building. It was built many years ago and had weathered many storms and high water events. I feared water would come into the pantry room which was on the lowest floor and right on ground level.
Luckily, this never happened. At one point, during a storm, we were distributing food to the shoppers and keeping an eye on the water level at the same time. The water came up to within two inches of coming into the building.
“Please shop quickly folks. That stream is rising very fast. I want us all to get our food before I have to close the pantry for our safety.”
I repeated these three sentences over and over and over. (As if the people could have shopped any faster. They were already being pushed to their limits regularly in an effort to get as many people through the pantry as we could during shopping hours.)
Then, in August, 2011, Hurricane Irene blew through. The seventh costliest hurricane in U.S. History, Irene landed at Coney Island on August 28th as a category 1 storm and then moved through New York State on its way over New England.
Throughout the Catskill Mountains and the Hudson River Valley, Irene caused floods described as five-hundred-year-floods by The Weather Channel.
On the next pantry day following Irene’s visit, people flocked in. They had no power in their homes, apartments, rooms. Some had lost everything. Others were inconvenienced by what was to be a week or more without power.
But, all were grateful for the food they received at the pantry.
Some in the line were visibly upset. It was painfully obvious that some of the people were never going to spiritually, emotionally, and financially recover from Irene. One couple, renting a place near Boiceville, lost everything, including their car. Someone they knew had a room in a shed further up the road on a hill. They moved in. They’re still there. They still don’t have a car. They walk to the Reservoir Food Pantry now and pick up what food they can carry to their home each week.
Within a short time, the Food Bank was making both Clorox and water in gallon jugs available.
The lesson I learned from Irene was to be prepared in the summer. Now, I order cleaning supplies throughout the year whenever they become available at the Food Bank. We try to keep bars of soap and toothbrushes on hand in the Items of Dignity section of the pantry.
Water is available in the pantry throughout the year. At a minimum, shoppers can take a bottle when they shop. In time of crisis they can, of course, take much more depending on what we have stacked in the back.
Having bottled water in the storeroom caused both problems and criticism when people who didn’t understand our ordering system saw case after case after case of water just sitting in a corner. This was particularly troubling to those who saw us allowing people to take only one bottle weekly throughout the year when we had so much in the storeroom.
When criticized, I simply refused to move off the dime. Two things with their own clocks: Food Banks and Hurricanes. I learned to work with both schedules.
When Superstorm Sandy hit New York City on October 29, 2012, the volunteers at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry were more prepared than when Irene visited. And, it was a good thing. Sandy was much larger and deadlier, affecting states from Florida to Maine. Sandy was both the second costliest hurricane in U.S. History and the deadliest.
At the pantry, we really didn’t skip a beat. As the shoppers filed in for food we asked each one about how they’d been affected by Sandy.
Probably half of the people coming through our doors in November were affected by Superstorm Sandy. As with Irene, some Sandy victims were unaware that food pantries even existed the week before. They just woke up one morning to discover life as they knew it to be totally different. To make matters worse, they soon realized they were in a new sociological category: situational poor. Not only were they homeless and scrounging for food, they were soon painfully aware they needed huge amounts of money to even begin the climb back to what they thought was normal.
“We’ve lost everything, our home, our car…everything.”
“We’re doing better than some Thurman. Part of our house is still standing. Our car is not gone.”
“Everything is gone, our home, our car, my job.”
On and on the stories went. Standing in the hall waiting to get food was calming for some. Others were not so calmed during their first visits. They looked around in the line and saw some of the people for what they were: alcoholics, artists, child abusers, children, crazies, the disabled, druggies, drunks, the elderly, hardworking people juggling two and three jobs, homeless, mentally ill, messed-up people, musicians, schizophrenics, terminally ill, thieves, Woodstock’s colorful characters, volunteers.
The Food Bank of the Hudson Valley shipped truckloads of food to our community in the weeks after Superstorm Sandy. In a short time, we served lines of people from the parking lot at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church off route 375 in West Hurley. In all, ten truckloads of food were distributed. This was in addition to food we were distributing to people on regular pantry days.
For months after Sandy’s visit, we ruminated over how to improve our disaster operations. Rich Allen devised a system he called “Buddy Up.” He asked each volunteer to contact another pantry and be prepared to communicate with these people in future storm events.
I went to the Town of Woodstock Board meetings several times and tried to involve the town in our efforts. I was never able to engage the Town Board in an effort to feed people in the event of a disaster.
The Good Neighbor Food pantry had the backing of the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley. We had volunteers trained to deliver food during emergencies. What we lacked were community officials who believed Woodstock would ever get hit. And, also, we had demonstrated that we could/would deliver large shipments of food to hungry people without involving the community in any way. Why should they bother to participate? A free ride already existed.
What we did not have and what we needed was for the Town of Woodstock to allow us to deliver and distribute large amounts of food to hungry people from a community property location if a damaging disaster struck our area.
When I requested this, I was met with glazed eyes, stares, and silence. And, really, why should they cooperate? The Catholic Church in West Hurley hosted these emergency mass food distributions now. Why change things? They simply didn’t to get involved if they could shove the job off on someone else.
My argument was that the community had a responsibility to offer a location. In the event of a serious future disaster, the parking lot of St. John’s Church was not big enough. I argued that preparation for a disaster would not hurt.
This story does not have a positive resolution. To my knowledge, no one stepped forward with a provision for emergency food distribution in Woodstock in the event of a catastrophic event.
The Reservoir Food Pantry and its location in Boiceville is now the focus of any disaster prevention efforts. Fortunately or unfortunately, Boiceville residents are familiar with superstorm aftermath.
Restoring normalcy to Upstate New Yorkers in the aftermath of both Irene and Sandy has been lacking. Many destroyed homes and businesses in our area are still not restored. A motel next to our Reservoir Food Pantry distribution point on Route 28 in Boiceville has been abandoned. Shoppers are coming for food who will probably never experience life as they knew it before Irene and Sandy.
Sadly, mold and rot advance without any help and buildings and vehicles do not repair themselves. We need to figure out how to facilitate rebuilding homes and businesses while preparing for the next disaster.
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Thurman Greco
