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| Staten Island feels forgotten after being hit hard by Sandy | |
| (about 4 hours later) | |
| "Once the water was waist high we had to do something," said Alex April. "I opened up the door and there was ten feet of water was on the whole block. It started filling up the house." | |
| It was then that April, 20, made up his mind. He was going to swim out of the house. In the middle of a hurricane. "It was crazy, it was hard. The current, it wasn't easy. It was freezing. There was sewage. It was nasty." | |
| April lives with his mother, Patty Chiaramonte, 47, in a one-storey home on the east coast of Staten Island. On Thursday, almost 72 hours since superstorm Sandy swept through, it was only just becoming clear that it has been one of the hardest hit of New York's five boroughs. | |
| At least 14 people are confirmed to have died and that number that is expected to rise. Hundreds more have been left homeless, April and Chiaramonte among them. | |
| They revealed their tale of survival as they gave the Guardian a tour of their wrecked home on Thursday. One look at the house shows why the decision facing April on Monday as the flood water rose was pretty straightforward. The ceilings in the four-room, wood-paneled home are only around nine feet high. The water lines left by Sandy are seven feet high. | |
| The only problem was that his mother couldn't swim. "It was scary, because he was like we have to get out," she said. "He says, 'I'm not dying, I'm leaving. We're gonna die if we stay in that house'. He just started swimming. I was scared. Scared for myself, scared for him." | |
| April was able to swim over the ten feet high fence in the backyard, and clambered onto his next door neighbour's decking, which is around 6ft high and still partly submerged. As he clung on as the water surged past him and the wind he saw signs of life in a house further down the block. | |
| "I noticed they had flashlights in the house," he said. "I jumped back into the water, swam to their house, jumped on their deck, banged on their door and they let me inside." | |
| He had made it, but did not know if his mum was alive. With the phone lines down and returning to the house impossible, he had an agonising wait until morning. Thankfully she was OK. She sat on top of the boiler for 11 hours until she was rescued at 7am by a coastguard team and a boat. | |
| Mother and son learned that the other was alive when the boat carrying Patty passed the house where Alex was staying and made it to the top of the street. | |
| "I was like, do you know where my son is, I can't find my son," she said. "And then he was standing at the corner of the block." | |
| April and his mother are among the lucky ones - they survived. But as they returned to their wrecked property for the first time, it would have been understandable if they didn't feel so lucky. | |
| Entering the house, the most striking thing was the smell. It was not just seawater that surged in here. A sewage processing works is located nearby, Chiaramonte said, and sewage flowed in too. As the water receded, the sewage remained. | |
| "It's terrible inside," she said, as she pointed to filth lining the walls and covering every item of furniture. It oozed out of soaked rugs and floorboards as we walked through the home home, stepping over soaked furniture, sodden clothes and Alex's broken multigym. | |
| In the kitchen the water had forced a hole in the floor, and the structure felt unsteady as we walked through to see the boiler where Chiaramonte spent Monday night. Water marks lined the walls three feet above the top of it. | |
| Like others, they had decided to stay despite being in an evacuation zone. It seemed that the small impact Hurricane Irene had in August last year had lulled people into a false sense of security. | |
| "We didn't think it was going to be this bad. That's why we stayed in the house and we rode it out, we didn't leave," she said. "Last time we got hardly anything so we didn't know it was going to be this bad so we figured we'd ride it out." | |
| Staten Island is barely a dozen miles from lower Manhattan but a world away in terms of the attention it has received since superstorm Sandy hit on Monday night. Across the island, there is a pervading sense of injustice among residents, that their plight has been ignored by a city leadership and a media convulsed by the blackouts and flooded subway tunnels of lower Manhattan. | |
| "Only Manhattan, because of rich people," says Teresa Bar, who lives in South Beach. "They only think of Manhattan, Manhattan, Manhattan." | |
| The home Bar shares with her husband Jerzy has been severely damaged by hurricane Sandy. The storm surge ripped open both their front and garage doors, filling the ground floor with five feet of water. | The home Bar shares with her husband Jerzy has been severely damaged by hurricane Sandy. The storm surge ripped open both their front and garage doors, filling the ground floor with five feet of water. |
| The couple had evacuated when Sandy hit, but Bar is angered by what she sees as a lack of response from New York City authorities. | The couple had evacuated when Sandy hit, but Bar is angered by what she sees as a lack of response from New York City authorities. |
| "Manhattan and Long Island, all the time, but we don't have any information about Staten Island at all. We pay taxes, everything, but we are the smaller people. We're not important to our government or anything." | "Manhattan and Long Island, all the time, but we don't have any information about Staten Island at all. We pay taxes, everything, but we are the smaller people. We're not important to our government or anything." |
| All the houses on Bar's street saw extensive damage to the ground floor. The modern terrace, with smart three-storey houses facing out towards the bay, lies only around 100m from the water front. | All the houses on Bar's street saw extensive damage to the ground floor. The modern terrace, with smart three-storey houses facing out towards the bay, lies only around 100m from the water front. |
| On Thursday residents were emptying their houses of damaged televisions, children's toys and washing machines. In front of each house were piles of ruined belongings. People here cannot throw away their items until insurance companies have been round to assess the damage. For the moment, the collections serve as reminders of the power of the storm. | On Thursday residents were emptying their houses of damaged televisions, children's toys and washing machines. In front of each house were piles of ruined belongings. People here cannot throw away their items until insurance companies have been round to assess the damage. For the moment, the collections serve as reminders of the power of the storm. |
| Bar, who works in Coney Island, Brooklyn, which was also hit hard by Sandy, spent the night at her daughter's in Williamsburg and returned on Wednesday. | Bar, who works in Coney Island, Brooklyn, which was also hit hard by Sandy, spent the night at her daughter's in Williamsburg and returned on Wednesday. |
| "I have lived here 10 years," she said. "I am 56. I am from Poland and Poland also floods but I never saw this big damage." | "I have lived here 10 years," she said. "I am 56. I am from Poland and Poland also floods but I never saw this big damage." |
| Mud was two feet high in the house the morning after the storm. On Thursday water lines marked the walls at around five feet. The couple had two motorbikes, which will need to be scrapped. Their refrigerator, freezer, and air conditioning units are useless. Teresa has been left with just one pair of shoes. | |
| "But you know, it's material things," she said. "Thank God our children, our grandchildren don't live with us. Thank God we saved our lives." | |
| Further along the street Sergey Novitsky was carefully rinsing his fishing equipment with a hosepipe. The reels and lines are among the few things he has been able to salvage. | Further along the street Sergey Novitsky was carefully rinsing his fishing equipment with a hosepipe. The reels and lines are among the few things he has been able to salvage. |
| "It was horrible. It was something I can't describe," he said. Novitsky, a computer programmer, and his wife Galina, who works as a paralegal, stayed here during the storm. They had nowhere else to go. | "It was horrible. It was something I can't describe," he said. Novitsky, a computer programmer, and his wife Galina, who works as a paralegal, stayed here during the storm. They had nowhere else to go. |
| "All our family and friends live in Zone A too," he said. His wife's sister lives two doors down the street with her husband and three children – aged seven, five, and just two months old. The couple weathered the storm at their house, the seven of them watching horrified as first the wind blew the skylight out of the building and then water surged across the road towards them. | "All our family and friends live in Zone A too," he said. His wife's sister lives two doors down the street with her husband and three children – aged seven, five, and just two months old. The couple weathered the storm at their house, the seven of them watching horrified as first the wind blew the skylight out of the building and then water surged across the road towards them. |
| "The water rose so quickly that we didn't have time to move the car or anything. We were freaking out when the water came in the house," Novitsky said. | "The water rose so quickly that we didn't have time to move the car or anything. We were freaking out when the water came in the house," Novitsky said. |
| "For the first time in my life I felt like we might drown. It was going higher and higher up the staircase. Four more steps and it would have come up." | "For the first time in my life I felt like we might drown. It was going higher and higher up the staircase. Four more steps and it would have come up." |
| He had parked his car in front of his house so that the family could jump into it and race to higher ground if water started coming in. Instead, the water rose so quickly that it lifted the car up and smashed it through the garage door. | |
| The couple had only moved here in August and many of their items were still in cardboard boxes in the garage. They watched from a second floor window as their possessions floated out of the garage and away into the night. | The couple had only moved here in August and many of their items were still in cardboard boxes in the garage. They watched from a second floor window as their possessions floated out of the garage and away into the night. |
| He pointed out the flood damage to cars along the street. All the ones that were left here will need to be scrapped, he said. He pointed to a BMW bought by a neighbour recently for $75,000. The owner had just repainted some parts of the car and had been showing it off in the week before Sandy struck. The storm had carried the car down the street, washing it against a tree. Pools of water were visible in the footwells. | |
| People here are getting on with the clean-up operation, power-hosing walls and floors and joking about the smell of bleach that pervades some properties, but there is some anger. Teresa Bar was not the only one who felt forgotten, although others were unwilling to put their names to their frustration. | People here are getting on with the clean-up operation, power-hosing walls and floors and joking about the smell of bleach that pervades some properties, but there is some anger. Teresa Bar was not the only one who felt forgotten, although others were unwilling to put their names to their frustration. |
| "We got ignored and we got hammered one of the most probably," said a man who gave his name as Alex. "We haven't seen no-one come here." Asked what he would like to have seen the authorities do differently, he shrugged his shoulder. "Maybe just show up," he said. "Maybe just say 'we're trying'." | |