On October 29, Hurricane Sandy pounded the city of New York and the surrounding areas for hundreds of miles. The storm surge in New York and New Jersey caused damage and flooding across the region. According to CNN, the flooding, combined with the wind damage, resulted in just over 4.8 million people losing power across 24 states. These numbers, though, can obscure the very personal and specific impact of the storm on people living in the areas that were most affected.

World Renew Disaster Response Services (DRS) staff and volunteers were on the scene just days after Sandy hit the New York area. After connecting with a Rapid Response Team at Midland Park Christian Reformed Church in New Jersey, Rich and Pat Grasman ventured in to Staten Island, New York, to assess the damage and identify potential projects for World Renew DRS volunteer teams.

In one residential area that had been evacuated, homes were already clearly marked with red, yellow, or green tags indicating their level of damage. The neighborhood was heavily covered with police to prevent looting as none of the homes were occupied. A few homeowners had already begun the process of trying to remove the layer of muck and mud that had been deposited in their homes from the storm surge.

The first homeowner the Grasmans met, we’ll call her Mary, was waiting in front of her house for the UPS truck to arrive. She was hoping to receive the title to her car so that she could begin the process of the insurance claim. As the Grasmans talked with her, they discovered that she and her son had chosen to remain at their home when the storm began . As the water rose higher, they decided to head to a neighbor’s house that was on higher ground because the storm surge was much worse than anticipated—almost 15 feet high in their neighborhood. They sloshed through waist-deep water to the neighbor’s house, where they ended up stranded on the second floor above the water.