Staff report
Hurricane Sandy’s assault on the East Coast has countless area residents watching weather maps and worrying about family members in the storm’s path.
Salisbury resident Jessica Vess said her sister, Emilie Yeager, lives just outside of Manhattan in Long Island City and is staying put in her basement apartment.
She said Yeager assured her that everything was fine when they talked during the day Monday on Facebook. New York City’s subway system was shut down Sunday night, so Yeager was working from home.
“She is about two blocks from the East River, and she lives in the basement of a building,” Vess said. “I asked her, ‘Are you leaving? Are you staying?’ She said, ‘Right now, I’m staying.'”
Vess said her sister is taking pictures of everything in her apartment in case it’s damaged in a flood and she needs to claim it for insurance.
Yeager lives just outside of the city’s Zone A evacuation area, where residents were ordered to leave by 7 p.m. Sunday.
“She said she has a bag packed for an emergency, and if she needs to leave, she can grab that bag and go,” Vess said. “I guess she’ll head over to some friends who live a few more blocks inland.”
Vess said she’s a little worried, but she felt better after speaking with her sister and knowing she had a plan.
“I’m praying that she has ample time to make a decision if she has to leave, and obviously that her home is safe as well,” she said.
Many are echoing that sentiment as they follow the storm’s progress.
Steve Shirley of Salisbury has relatives all up and down the East Coast that he’s concerned about.
“My parents are in Williamsburg, Va.,” Shirley said. “Our son is in Arlington, Va. My youngest sister and her family are in Washington, D.C. My nephew and his family are near Baltimore, Md. My middle sister and her family (are) in Hillsborough, N.J. I have a niece … in NYC and a niece in Boston.”
And his oldest sister is in West Virginia, bracing for as much as two feet of snow.
“Love being in Salisbury, N.C.,” Shirley said.
Chris Pantalone, a local sous chef, is from Gloversville, N.Y. “My whole family is in NY,” he said on Facebook. “I told them to be ready.
Greg Hicks’ sister lives above a restaurant called Curry in a Hurry in Manhattan. “…She said they’re still open so either it’s not too bad or Curry in a Hurry is just that awesome,” Greg said Monday on Facebook.
Glenn Taylor has been concerned about his son and daughter-in-law in Brooklyn, N.Y.
And Rick Fesperman of Salisbury was keeping his eye on Charles Town, W.Va., where his son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren live. “They may not only get strong winds and flooding rains, but maybe even snow too,” Fesperman said on Facebook. That could mean falling trees and power outages.
Freezing candles
Salisburian James Carli, a graduate student at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., spent Monday preparing for Hurricane Sandy’s approach. Seton Hall, about 30 miles west of New York City, was closed Monday and will be closed again today.
By 2:40 p.m. Monday, Carli said the wind was “starting to get unnervingly strong and sustained.” But he believed his area would avoid the brunt of the storm.
“I have stocked up on bottled water and canned food, filled my bathtub with water, frozen my candles (that’s a neat trick to make them burn three times as long), and charged all my electronics,” he said via Facebook.
“The general feeling among my friends and classmates is that this is a welcome break from school, and an exciting adventure to be shared with friends,” Carli said. “We have all run into friends as we have been stocking up on supplies at Target and Costco, and a sense of camaraderie runs through all my friends from the diplomacy school.
“Nevertheless, the severity of damage and destruction to be suffered by others because of the storm is not lost on us. … There is a tangible sense of anxiety among everyone in New Jersey, as if everyone is holding their breath for something that might or might not be absolutely destructive.”