Jahn: Long Islanders in survival mode after Sandy

A dining room table perched on the steps of the school. A sand shark in the middle of a boulevard. A 30-foot Boston Whaler on the railroad tracks, as if readying to pull into the station.

No, I am not at the Museum of Modern Art surveying a series of surrealist still-lifes; I am in the midst of post-Sandy chaos.

She certainly packed a wallop, wreaking havoc, wrecking homes and tormenting overwrought homeowners. More than 100 lives have been lost across Sandy's entire footprint. It really was the storm of the century -- far worse than the other three or four storms of the century I have weathered in my half-century of existence.

We must learn not to overuse these monikers. I suspect that the overhype of earlier storms may have led to the overconfidence so many people we know had. We live just north of the flood zone in Rockville Centre, so while water was not our problem, it certainly was for many of our friends.

Monday afternoon we had an early pre-storm dinner at the home of friends who were already sheltering his parents, who had prudently fled their home on a canal in Island Park. The water began pouring into their house three hours before high tide. We were eating a roast that had been rescued from a floating fridge. It really does add to the flavor. We went home when the lights went out around 6.

Early Tuesday, already rattled by the night of howling winds, I was distressed to see an ambulance pulling up to my house, and then confused when it discharged a collie. Which was quickly followed by friends of ours who live in Long Beach.

We had known they were attempting to ride out the storm at home. Their house had never taken on water -- not even during Irene. Well, the husband nearly electrocuted himself trying to shop-vac the storm off his floors, and they both knew it was time to get out when the couch the wife was sitting on suddenly floated toward the door.

Only problem was, the car was under water by then.

They took refuge with their dog in the unfinished attic, watching the ocean rise halfway up the walls, and were rescued once the tide went back out. When they arrived at my house we hustled them in and offered them a drink. "Anything but water," they replied.

Later, we surveyed the damage in our neighborhood and beyond, touring Oceanside and Island Park and parts of Long Beach, where the ocean was so rough even the surfers stayed away. The marinas along Austin Boulevard in Island Park lost not only the anchored boats, but also the stored boats. All types of watercraft, wrapped tightly against the winter, were strewn in unlikely places. Two were wedged up against the Ruby Tuesday. Perhaps it's time to change the name to Whaling Wednesday?

The destruction is sobering for a population of Island-dwellers -- and I hate being sober in a storm. But on the bright side, we've learned a few new things from the storm: Glow bracelets can make maneuvering in the dark easier, a rollicking game of Monopoly by candlelight can ease the pain of having a superstorm on your 16th birthday (poor Caroline, my baby, was a good sport), and years of hoarding things that could be useful in case of emergency are useless if you can't find those things buried away under the piles of things you were saving for a rainy day.

We've also borne renewed witness to the resiliency and basic kindness of human nature. Even though still in survival mode, people were already pitching in to help others -- pumping out basements, chucking debris, offering what shelter and comfort they have. Our next-door neighbors literally threw us a lifeline when they tossed an extension cord attached to their generator over the fence. He's been tending the thing like a mad scientist, trying to keep his creature alive.

There are 88 years left in this century. Let's hope we've seen our last "hundred-year storm."

Eileen White Jahn of Rockville Centre chairs the business administration department at St. Joseph's College in Patchogue.